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113 Great Research Paper Topics

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One of the hardest parts of writing a research paper can be just finding a good topic to write about. Fortunately we've done the hard work for you and have compiled a list of 113 interesting research paper topics. They've been organized into ten categories and cover a wide range of subjects so you can easily find the best topic for you.

In addition to the list of good research topics, we've included advice on what makes a good research paper topic and how you can use your topic to start writing a great paper.

What Makes a Good Research Paper Topic?

Not all research paper topics are created equal, and you want to make sure you choose a great topic before you start writing. Below are the three most important factors to consider to make sure you choose the best research paper topics.

#1: It's Something You're Interested In

A paper is always easier to write if you're interested in the topic, and you'll be more motivated to do in-depth research and write a paper that really covers the entire subject. Even if a certain research paper topic is getting a lot of buzz right now or other people seem interested in writing about it, don't feel tempted to make it your topic unless you genuinely have some sort of interest in it as well.

#2: There's Enough Information to Write a Paper

Even if you come up with the absolute best research paper topic and you're so excited to write about it, you won't be able to produce a good paper if there isn't enough research about the topic. This can happen for very specific or specialized topics, as well as topics that are too new to have enough research done on them at the moment. Easy research paper topics will always be topics with enough information to write a full-length paper.

Trying to write a research paper on a topic that doesn't have much research on it is incredibly hard, so before you decide on a topic, do a bit of preliminary searching and make sure you'll have all the information you need to write your paper.

#3: It Fits Your Teacher's Guidelines

Don't get so carried away looking at lists of research paper topics that you forget any requirements or restrictions your teacher may have put on research topic ideas. If you're writing a research paper on a health-related topic, deciding to write about the impact of rap on the music scene probably won't be allowed, but there may be some sort of leeway. For example, if you're really interested in current events but your teacher wants you to write a research paper on a history topic, you may be able to choose a topic that fits both categories, like exploring the relationship between the US and North Korea. No matter what, always get your research paper topic approved by your teacher first before you begin writing.

113 Good Research Paper Topics

Below are 113 good research topics to help you get you started on your paper. We've organized them into ten categories to make it easier to find the type of research paper topics you're looking for.

Arts/Culture

Discuss the main differences in art from the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance .
Analyze the impact a famous artist had on the world.
How is sexism portrayed in different types of media (music, film, video games, etc.)? Has the amount/type of sexism changed over the years?
How has the music of slaves brought over from Africa shaped modern American music?
How has rap music evolved in the past decade?
How has the portrayal of minorities in the media changed?

Current Events

What have been the impacts of China's one child policy?
How have the goals of feminists changed over the decades?
How has the Trump presidency changed international relations?
Analyze the history of the relationship between the United States and North Korea.
What factors contributed to the current decline in the rate of unemployment?
What have been the impacts of states which have increased their minimum wage?
How do US immigration laws compare to immigration laws of other countries?
How have the US's immigration laws changed in the past few years/decades?
How has the Black Lives Matter movement affected discussions and view about racism in the US?
What impact has the Affordable Care Act had on healthcare in the US?
What factors contributed to the UK deciding to leave the EU (Brexit)?
What factors contributed to China becoming an economic power?
Discuss the history of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies (some of which tokenize the S&P 500 Index on the blockchain) .
Do students in schools that eliminate grades do better in college and their careers?
Do students from wealthier backgrounds score higher on standardized tests?
Do students who receive free meals at school get higher grades compared to when they weren't receiving a free meal?
Do students who attend charter schools score higher on standardized tests than students in public schools?
Do students learn better in same-sex classrooms?
How does giving each student access to an iPad or laptop affect their studies?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Montessori Method ?
Do children who attend preschool do better in school later on?
What was the impact of the No Child Left Behind act?
How does the US education system compare to education systems in other countries?
What impact does mandatory physical education classes have on students' health?
Which methods are most effective at reducing bullying in schools?
Do homeschoolers who attend college do as well as students who attended traditional schools?
Does offering tenure increase or decrease quality of teaching?
How does college debt affect future life choices of students?
Should graduate students be able to form unions?

What are different ways to lower gun-related deaths in the US?
How and why have divorce rates changed over time?
Is affirmative action still necessary in education and/or the workplace?
Should physician-assisted suicide be legal?
How has stem cell research impacted the medical field?
How can human trafficking be reduced in the United States/world?
Should people be able to donate organs in exchange for money?
Which types of juvenile punishment have proven most effective at preventing future crimes?
Has the increase in US airport security made passengers safer?
Analyze the immigration policies of certain countries and how they are similar and different from one another.
Several states have legalized recreational marijuana. What positive and negative impacts have they experienced as a result?
Do tariffs increase the number of domestic jobs?
Which prison reforms have proven most effective?
Should governments be able to censor certain information on the internet?
Which methods/programs have been most effective at reducing teen pregnancy?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Keto diet?
How effective are different exercise regimes for losing weight and maintaining weight loss?
How do the healthcare plans of various countries differ from each other?
What are the most effective ways to treat depression ?
What are the pros and cons of genetically modified foods?
Which methods are most effective for improving memory?
What can be done to lower healthcare costs in the US?
What factors contributed to the current opioid crisis?
Analyze the history and impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic .
Are low-carbohydrate or low-fat diets more effective for weight loss?
How much exercise should the average adult be getting each week?
Which methods are most effective to get parents to vaccinate their children?
What are the pros and cons of clean needle programs?
How does stress affect the body?
Discuss the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
What were the causes and effects of the Salem Witch Trials?
Who was responsible for the Iran-Contra situation?
How has New Orleans and the government's response to natural disasters changed since Hurricane Katrina?
What events led to the fall of the Roman Empire?
What were the impacts of British rule in India ?
Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary?
What were the successes and failures of the women's suffrage movement in the United States?
What were the causes of the Civil War?
How did Abraham Lincoln's assassination impact the country and reconstruction after the Civil War?
Which factors contributed to the colonies winning the American Revolution?
What caused Hitler's rise to power?
Discuss how a specific invention impacted history.
What led to Cleopatra's fall as ruler of Egypt?
How has Japan changed and evolved over the centuries?
What were the causes of the Rwandan genocide ?

Why did Martin Luther decide to split with the Catholic Church?
Analyze the history and impact of a well-known cult (Jonestown, Manson family, etc.)
How did the sexual abuse scandal impact how people view the Catholic Church?
How has the Catholic church's power changed over the past decades/centuries?
What are the causes behind the rise in atheism/ agnosticism in the United States?
What were the influences in Siddhartha's life resulted in him becoming the Buddha?
How has media portrayal of Islam/Muslims changed since September 11th?

Science/Environment

How has the earth's climate changed in the past few decades?
How has the use and elimination of DDT affected bird populations in the US?
Analyze how the number and severity of natural disasters have increased in the past few decades.
Analyze deforestation rates in a certain area or globally over a period of time.
How have past oil spills changed regulations and cleanup methods?
How has the Flint water crisis changed water regulation safety?
What are the pros and cons of fracking?
What impact has the Paris Climate Agreement had so far?
What have NASA's biggest successes and failures been?
How can we improve access to clean water around the world?
Does ecotourism actually have a positive impact on the environment?
Should the US rely on nuclear energy more?
What can be done to save amphibian species currently at risk of extinction?
What impact has climate change had on coral reefs?
How are black holes created?
Are teens who spend more time on social media more likely to suffer anxiety and/or depression?
How will the loss of net neutrality affect internet users?
Analyze the history and progress of self-driving vehicles.
How has the use of drones changed surveillance and warfare methods?
Has social media made people more or less connected?
What progress has currently been made with artificial intelligence ?
Do smartphones increase or decrease workplace productivity?
What are the most effective ways to use technology in the classroom?
How is Google search affecting our intelligence?
When is the best age for a child to begin owning a smartphone?
Has frequent texting reduced teen literacy rates?

How to Write a Great Research Paper

Even great research paper topics won't give you a great research paper if you don't hone your topic before and during the writing process. Follow these three tips to turn good research paper topics into great papers.

#1: Figure Out Your Thesis Early

Before you start writing a single word of your paper, you first need to know what your thesis will be. Your thesis is a statement that explains what you intend to prove/show in your paper. Every sentence in your research paper will relate back to your thesis, so you don't want to start writing without it!

As some examples, if you're writing a research paper on if students learn better in same-sex classrooms, your thesis might be "Research has shown that elementary-age students in same-sex classrooms score higher on standardized tests and report feeling more comfortable in the classroom."

If you're writing a paper on the causes of the Civil War, your thesis might be "While the dispute between the North and South over slavery is the most well-known cause of the Civil War, other key causes include differences in the economies of the North and South, states' rights, and territorial expansion."

#2: Back Every Statement Up With Research

Remember, this is a research paper you're writing, so you'll need to use lots of research to make your points. Every statement you give must be backed up with research, properly cited the way your teacher requested. You're allowed to include opinions of your own, but they must also be supported by the research you give.

#3: Do Your Research Before You Begin Writing

You don't want to start writing your research paper and then learn that there isn't enough research to back up the points you're making, or, even worse, that the research contradicts the points you're trying to make!

Get most of your research on your good research topics done before you begin writing. Then use the research you've collected to create a rough outline of what your paper will cover and the key points you're going to make. This will help keep your paper clear and organized, and it'll ensure you have enough research to produce a strong paper.

What's Next?

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These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links, PrepScholar may receive a commission.

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Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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Top 300+ Ideas For Research Paper Topics in 2024

Updated 28 Aug 2024

Some say the most difficult part of writing a text – is to start. But topic selection even precedes this starting point. This activity takes off a lot of time, and sometimes, imagination just doesn’t work in your favor. That’s where our list of best research paper topics will be useful.

Our research paper writing service collected the most unhacked and powerful ideas to turn the average piece of writing into a research paper. Discover what is a research paper and how to choose suitable and interesting research topics with our help.

Writing a research topic on your own requires either producing one from scratch (based on your interests and goals and, potentially, on some brainstorming) or getting inspiration from a number of sources, like preassembled topic lists, course material, teachers, real-life, news headlines, published research in the respective field, etc.

What are the 3 Types of Research Questions?

Before formulating your research questions ideas, note that there are 3 important types of research questions:

Descriptive – these employ careful and comprehensive observation of a phenomenon/ event, subject, trait, etc. in order to characterize it in detail and to reveal important/ interesting/ undescribed aspects or patterns potentially.

Causal – these investigate whether altering some variables leads to changes in other variables, suggesting a causal relationship.

Comparative – these look into similarities and differences between two or more entities.

What is a Good Research Paper Topic?

Good research paper topics are characterized by several features that make them suitable for engaging and successful research papers. Features that tend to characterize good research questions are as follows:

specific and concrete – investigation goals and (expected results) have to be clear and focused

original – investigating aspects/ entities/ relationships that have not been researched before

highly important /impactful for the community/ society/ a professional field.

highly relevant for potential readers/ reviewers

trending – emerging disciplines/ topics spark more interest due to their novelty and yet unexplored potential

Choosing an appropriate topic influences various components of the research process, including the research question and methodology, ultimately affecting the quality and relevance of the findings.

College Research Paper Topics

The bias in the selection of the college internships and scholarships
The problems of reverse discrimination in post-college employment
Should multicultural education concepts be implemented at a greater depth?
The drug and alcohol abuse on college campuses
Does social media help students to find appropriate information and learn?
The psychological disorders and the support groups in modern colleges
Should people with ADHD and Autism be separated from the other students?
The art of college political campaigns
Pros and cons of religious colleges
Should college athletes be paid and provided with additional advantages?
The Influence of Social Media on College Students' Academic Performance and Well-being
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Online Learning Platforms in Higher Education
The Role of College Education in Fostering Entrepreneurial Skills
The Impact of Student Loan Debt on Career Choices Among Graduates
Analyzing the Shift in College Admissions Criteria in the Post-COVID Era

Health Research Paper Topics

The challenges of deafness and communication difficulties among special needs students
The concept of global health security
The ways to decrease household air pollution
How the information about infectious diseases is distributed online
Should people be allowed to know more about climate change issues?
The privacy factor and the personal health issues
The role of fitness ads in exercising practices
The healthy food standards are not always unbiased
The role of social media in the medical care system
The psychological aspect in the perception of allergies
The Long-term Effects of COVID-19 on Respiratory Health
Mental Health Outcomes of Prolonged Social Media Use Among Adolescents
The Efficacy of Plant-based Diets in Preventing Chronic Diseases
The Role of Telemedicine in Improving Accessibility to Healthcare
Analyzing the Impact of Sleep Quality on Daily Cognitive Functioning

Research Paper Topics on Medicine

Is life-sustaining therapy needed when it’s futile?
The role of placebo treatment
How to avoid animal testing?
Pros and contras of medical marijuana
Is being a vegetarian useful for child’s health?
How obesity affects our health?
Vaccines for kids: their usefulness or damage
Should prescription drugs be advertised directly to consumers?
Do doctors turn their patients into drug addicts?
Advancements in Gene Editing: Ethical Implications and Future Prospects
The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Diagnostic Medicine
Personalized Medicine: Tailoring Drug Therapies to Genetic Profiles
The Impact of Microbiome Diversity on Human Health
Stem Cell Therapy: Current Applications and Ethical Considerations
The Challenges and Successes of Vaccine Development in the 21st Century

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Education Research Paper Topics

How can standardized tests improve education?
Does college graduates make more money?
Should education be cheaper?
How will modern technologies change the way of teaching in the future?
The creation of particular learning methods for blind children
Social networking and school
Metal detectors at schools
The effects of contemporary teaching methods
The role of technology in lesson planning
How to manage bullies and take actions against bullying at education institutions?
The Effects of Bilingual Education on Cognitive Development in Children
Evaluating the Long-term Impact of Early Childhood Education Programs
The Role of Technology in Enhancing Special Education
Standardized Testing: Measuring Intelligence or Memorization?
The Influence of Teacher-Student Relationships on Academic Achievement

Read also: 150+ Best Sociology Research Topics

Environmental Research Paper Topics

How to reduce global warming?
How to stop wasting paper and save trees?
Can overpopulation be managed?
Should more films about environmental issues be produced?
Human impacts on forests
Underground effects of earthquakes
How to elaborate the optimal adaptation of buildings threatened by hurricanes?
Is it possible to predict hurricane impacts?
Is nuclear power safe for humans?
How dangerous is GMO food?
Assessing the Impact of Urban Sprawl on Local Ecosystems
The Effectiveness of Plastic Ban Policies on Ocean Health
Carbon Capture Technology: Viability and Potential in Mitigating Climate Change
The Role of Indigenous Knowledge in Biodiversity Conservation
Analyzing the Environmental Consequences of Fast Fashion

Research Topics on Entertainment and Sport

Are social networks good for our society?
Do violent video games make kids angry and cruel?
Is it necessary to forbid using animals for entertainment?
Do beauty contests set the non-achievable beauty standards?
Are newspapers going to be replaced by online sources of information?
How gaming consoles influence the youth?
Should women be allowed to compete against men?
What television programs should be banned?
How tv shows impose fake moral standards?
Can the use of social media, such as Facebook, lower teens’ self-esteem?
The Psychological Impact of Competitive Sports on Young Athletes
The Influence of Celebrity Endorsements on Consumer Behavior
E-Sports: The Rise of Competitive Gaming and Its Recognition as a Legitimate Sport
The Role of Sports in Promoting Intercultural Dialogue and Understanding
The Economic Impact of Major Sporting Events on Host Cities

Research Paper Topics on Media and Communication

Should the media programming of ads aimed at children be made illegal?
The role of mediation in the media
Should bloggers be considered as journalists?
The ethical side of modern news reports
The freedom of speech online
The copyright law restrictions and the vague concepts
The importance of psychology and communicative skills in journalism
The role of gender in interpersonal communication
The modern standards of nonverbal communication
The negative influence of Instagram and body image distortion
The Evolution of News Consumption: Impact of Social Media on Traditional Media
The Role of Media in Shaping Public Opinion During Political Campaigns
The Ethics of Surveillance and Privacy in Digital Communication
The Effects of Smartphone Usage on Face-to-Face Communication Skills
Virtual Reality: The Future of Immersive Journalism

Research Paper Topics on Politics

Should the drinking age be lowered?
Should adults have the right to carry a concealed handgun?
More gun control laws should be enacted
How can the international community prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons?
How can ethnic killings be stopped?
Current prospect for peace between Israel and the Palestinians
What world would be like without wars?
How to avoid workforce reduction?
Should the death penalty be allowed?
Is socialism possible?
The Influence of Social Media on Political Mobilization and Public Protests
Campaign Finance Reform: The Effects on Political Representation and Elections
The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Shaping Global Policy
The Impact of Populism on Traditional Political Party Systems
Cybersecurity in Elections: Protecting the Integrity of Democracy

Psychology Research Paper Topics

Is autism a disease or a development idiosyncrasy?
How to forecast and shape behavioral patterns?
How to manage child violence?
How to deal with a mental breakdown?
The impact of classical music on the work of the brain
How insomnia affects our health?
How bad dreams influence our mood?
Is stress really harmful?
How depression impacts the immune system?
Intellectually gifted people: how is it possible?
The Psychological Effects of Social Isolation in the Digital Age
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy vs. Mindfulness: Comparative Outcomes in Treating Anxiety
The Role of Resilience in Recovery from Trauma
The Impact of Parenting Styles on Child Personality Development
Neuroplasticity: How Learning and Experience Shape Brain Function

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Science & Technology Research Paper Ideas

How is light being used to treat cancer and other diseases?
What is the current evidence that Mars has had water and maybe life?
Can nanomedicine potentially extend the human lifespan?
What is the future of computing and artificial intelligence?
The role cryogenics may play in future
Can alternative energy effectively replace fossil fuels?
Is it beneficial for wild animals to have interactions with people?
What evidence do we have that CMB is the result of the big bang?
How will self-driving cars change the way people live?
Can using system like bitcoin help protect identity theft?
The Potential of CRISPR and Gene Therapy in Curing Genetic Diseases
Nanotechnology in Medicine: The Next Frontier for Drug Delivery Systems
The Role of Quantum Computing in the Future of Cybersecurity
The Ethical Implications of Humanoid Robots in Society
Renewable Energy Technologies: Assessing the Efficiency and Sustainability of Solar Power Solutions

Research Topics Ideas on Culture

A new comprehension of past events
The origin of racial discrimination
The roots of antisemitism
The impact of advertisements and commercials on modern art
The most remarkable cultural achievements of the 20th century and their influence on our society
Cultural revolutions throughout history
How pop culture trends influence youth?
Should pregnant celebrities be exposed on magazine’s covers?
Why was Greek cultural influence so important for the ancient Mediterranean world?
Why was the Victorian period a time of cultural change?
Cultural Impact on Climate Change Response: A Comparative Study
The Preservation of Folklore and Oral Traditions in the Digital Age
Cross-Cultural Communication: Overcoming Language and Ethical Barriers
The Influence of Globalization on Indigenous Cultures
Cultural Diplomacy and Its Role in International Relations

Research Paper Topics on Math

The influence of algorithms
Is it possible to build a winning monopoly strategy?
Why is 'x' the unknown?
How math changed the world?
What's the solution to the McDonald's math problem?
How do math geniuses understand extremely hard math concepts so quickly?
Should high school math contests be banned?
What is the relationship between music and math?
Are math formulas ever used in real life?
What are some of the most confusing math problems ever?
The Role of Mathematics in Cryptography and Cybersecurity
Mathematical Models in Predicting Pandemic Outcomes: A Case Study of COVID-19
The Application of Game Theory in Economic and Social Decision Making
Chaos Theory and Its Implications in Weather Forecasting and Climate Science
The Impact of Big Data on the Evolution of Statistical Methods and Theories

Research Paper Topics on Business

How do dirty business tactics work?
Can business be started without money?
Notorious business leaders
Entrepreneurship and family business
Ethical decision making in everyday work situations
What are the most effective strategies for promoting a small business?
Is it worth it to expand the business into a new region or country?
How to build a successful startup
The role of international business and sustainable development
The impact of climate change on international business strategies
Corporate Social Responsibility: Measuring the Impact on Business Performance
The Gig Economy: Challenges and Opportunities for the Modern Workforce
Innovative Business Models in the Age of Sustainable Development
The Influence of Organizational Culture on Employee Productivity and Satisfaction
The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Shaping Consumer Behavior and Marketing Strategies

Research Paper Topics For Middle School

Is going vegan the healthiest choice for you?
Is the greenhouse effect artificial or natural?
The causes, effects, and consequences of earthquakes
How much computer games can one play without getting addicted
Princess Diana and her dynasty
Why is competition so critical for humans?
How did poetry evolve?
Methods used by ancient sailors to navigate the globe
Gender roles in children’s books and cartoons
Who is the greatest general who has lived on the planet?
The Science Behind Video Games: How Gaming Affects Reflexes and Learning
The History and Cultural Significance of a Popular Holiday
The Impact of Recycling Programs in Schools
Animal Habitats: How Urban Development Affects Local Wildlife
The Role of Social Media in Modern Communication Among Teens

High School Research Paper Ideas

The ways to address drug addiction cases in high school
The physical vs digital communications
The body image and the K-Pop culture
The importance of school volunteering and social work
The changes to the academic process due to Covid-19
The legacy of the Trail of Tears
The role of motivation in becoming a better student
The role of books in print and the libraries
The ways to improve school safety
The role of parental involvement in school work
Exploring the Psychological Effects of Social Media on Teen Self-Esteem
The Physics of Sports: Analyzing the Science Behind Athletic Performance
Climate Change and Its Effects on Local Ecosystems
The Evolution of Language in the Digital Age
The Rise of Cryptocurrency: Economic Education and the Future of Money

History Research Paper Topics

What were the impacts of World War II on the rights of women?
What factors initiated the WWII
Is liberalism the most optimal solution?
What were the consequences of women suffrage movements
What was the impact of Martin Luther King’s protest against the Catholic church
What is the most effective military strategy of all time
How has Asian art influenced contemporary art
How have different monetary systems affected the development of humanity
What is the correlation between the Roman and Greek culture?
Aztec empire and its architecture
The Role of Women in World War II and Its Impact on Gender Roles
The Influence of the Silk Road on the Cultural Exchange between East and West
The Effects of the Cold War on Space Exploration Competition
The Historical Accuracy of Popular Historical Films: A Case Study
The Impact of the Printing Press on the Renaissance and European Society

Art Research Paper Ideas

The reasons why digital museums must be present and made available
The peculiarities of the Flemish artists
Should Japanese anime be considered as a separate art form?
The role of Photoshop and similar digital solutions in the perception of modern art
The history of photography and the artistic expression forms
The challenges of the modern artists during social distancing times
The Middle Eastern perception of color and the light
Ancient Rome's role in the creation of the sculptures
Should the artists be allowed to represent their works in public parks?
The importance of art education in middle schools
The Evolution of Street Art and Its Acceptance into Mainstream Art Culture
The Influence of Digital Media on Traditional Painting Techniques
The Role of Patronage in the Development of Renaissance Art
The Psychological Impact of Color in Abstract Art
Cultural Representation and Diversity in Modern Art Museums

Literature Research Paper Topics

The American dream literature
How does harry potter reflects the ideal of the time
Can you show a new aspect of prose based on the independent investigation
The prose of women suffrage movements
The dawn of literature on modern society
Why do authors use metaphors and similes
Evaluate and discuss the allegory of 2 random novels
What factors are helpful in allowing you to identify the genre of a novel you are reading
Is fanfiction considered an independent literature
Romance and sex in Renaissance
Fiction as an instrument of propaganda
The Representation of Gender Roles in Victorian Literature
Postcolonial Voices: How Literature Has Shaped National Identity
The Journey Motif in Classic American Road Novels
Dystopian Visions: What Modern Dystopian Literature Tells Us About Today's Society

Law Research Paper Topics

How is the Islamic law perceived around the globe
Is ECOLEX a pathway to environmental law
Why is it critical to learn the GATT documents?
What does the European patent office do?
Mass communication law
Impact of women’s authority in different countries on the planet
Evaluate the effectiveness of the international criminal law court tools
Detailed analysis and report of the comparative criminal procedure
Exciting outtakes from the inter-American human rights library
Does the US copyright office really help writers defend their businesses?
The Impact of International Law on Human Rights Practices in Developing Countries
Cyber Law: The Challenges of Regulating Online Behavior and Privacy
Intellectual Property Rights in the Digital Age: Balancing Innovation and Protection
The Effectiveness of Rehabilitation in Juvenile Justice Systems
Comparative Analysis of Gun Control Legislation and Its Impact on Violent Crime Rates

Religion Research Paper Topics

The Role of Religion in Modern Secular Societies
Interfaith Dialogue: Benefits and Challenges in a Pluralistic Society
The Influence of Religious Beliefs on Ethical Decision-Making in Business
Religion and Politics: An Analysis of Their Intersections in Contemporary World Affairs
The Impact of Religious Education on Tolerance and Cultural Understanding
The Evolution of Religious Practices and Their Adaptation in the Digital Age
The Psychological Effects of Religious Rituals and Traditions
Comparative Study of Creation Myths Across Different Cultures
The Role of Women in Organized Religions: A Historical Perspective
Secularization: The Decline of Religious Influence in Western Societies
Religious Extremism: Understanding the Causes and Seeking Solutions
The Impact of Pilgrimage on Religious and Spiritual Life
Religious Symbols in Public Spaces: Freedom of Expression or a Call for Regulation?
The Relationship Between Religion and Morality in Contemporary Ethical Debates
The Effects of Globalization on Indigenous Religions and Spiritual Practices

Argumentative Research Paper Topics

Should education be made free for everyone?
The influencers and bloggers cannot be considered as a job
The role of military service is the way towards maturity
Should Internet access be limited during college lectures?
The death penalty service is not an ethical solution
Fashion industry creates a bad influence on young people
The Fairplay concept should be rewarded financially
Should tobacco be made illegal indoors?
Religious differences often become the cause of wars
The majority of mobile applications represent the invasion of privacy
Universal Basic Income: Economic Savior or Road to Dependency?
Mandatory Vaccinations: Public Health Requirement or Personal Choice Infringement?
The Death Penalty: A Necessary Deterrent or a Violation of Human Rights?
Climate Change Policies: Economic Hindrance or Long-term Investment?
Animal Testing in Medical Research: Ethical Consideration or Scientific Necessity?

These are the 200+ topics on various subjects, which you might find useful when creating your own. In case you need help aside from creating topics, you can also order the original research on Politics, Media & Communication, to do my Math homework , Law, and even Nursing papers for sale on nursing essay writing service Edubirdie.

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How to Choose a Good Research Paper Topic?

While it may seem challenging to come up with a good research paper topic as you try your best to narrow things down, the trick is to choose something that influences you because you know it well and can support your arguments with relevant evidence. When you write a research paper, the subject should be well-structured and relevant to your thesis statement. Always take time to research the list of sources to compose your topic sentences as well to make them relate to your thesis part. It’s always best to check a good research paper introduction example before you start working on the paper and choosing your topic, or contact our essay writing service for help. Conducting preliminary research is essential at this stage to gauge the availability of information and the feasibility of potential topics. Here are the steps to consider:

Start With Observing Your Interests.

If you are confused with a variety of interesting topics for writing a creative essay, it’s better to decide what interests you the most. Don’t stick to easy research paper topics just to complete the task fast. If you are allowed to freely choose what to write an essay about, use the opportunity to create something unique. Write down the list of your interests and break down every idea into small certain topics. When you have a list in front of your eyes, it will be easier to make up your mind and start considering a particular issue.

Then you should examine what aspect of the topic is preferable for you to outline in your research paper. A list will save you here again. Use pros/cons template to include all the arguments and objections to the issues.

Come Up With an Argumentative Research Question.

The most challenging part of choosing a competitive research paper topic is finding an aspect that poses some importance for your course and the subject per se. While it may seem that it is sufficient to make a general statement, your argumentation should include a clear research question. Consider asking yourself why you have chosen a particular topic and how your research will make it clearer or provide innovative solutions.

Study Available Research Topic Ideas.

Since we have already mentioned the dangers of choosing something too broad, it is vital to narrow things down and brainstorm the list of possible research paper ideas that deal with the same subject. In other words, you can write down at least five different subjects and see whether you can find sufficient information to support them with the sources or statistical data. Remember the importance of your topic’s wording!

Compose Strong Thesis Statement.

It must be done at the same time as you choose your research paper topic because these two concepts must be interconnected. Engaging with the writing process, including refining the topic, conducting thorough research, and developing a strong thesis statement, directly influences the overall effectiveness and enjoyment of crafting academic work. Make sure that you have the list of sources prepared in advance to incorporate relevant information in your body paragraphs. As always, they must be the supporting evidence for your thesis statement’s idea and the research purpose.

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Written by David Kidwell

David is one of those experienced content creators from the United Kingdom who has a high interest in social issues, culture, and entrepreneurship. He always says that reading, blogging, and staying aware of what happens in the world is what makes a person responsible. He likes to learn and share what he knows by making things inspiring and creative enough even for those students who dislike reading.

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Topics for Research Papers: Diverse Research Ideas Across Disciplines

Table of contents

1 Why Is the Choice of Subject in Research Papers So Important?
2 How to Choose a Research Paper Topic?
3 Business Research Paper Topics
4 Media and Communications Research Paper Topics
5 Psychology Research Paper Topics
6 Argumentative Research Paper Topics
7 Controversial Topics for Research Paper
8 Easy Research Paper Topics
9 Research Topic in Natural Sciences
10 Sociology Research Paper Topics
11 Family Research Paper Topics
12 Discrimination Research Paper Topics
13 Law Research Paper Topics
14 Environmental Research Paper Topics
15 Education Research Paper Topics
16 Science and Technology Research Paper Topics
17 College Research Paper Topics
18 Health Research Paper Topics
19 Politics Research Paper Topics
20 History Research Paper Topics
21 Music Research Paper Topics
22.1 After Choosing the Research Topic
22.2 Closing Thoughts

When students approach the final stage of their academic journey, they immediately begin to think about the need to develop their research project to add to their college curriculum. To do this, students start searching for the best research paper topics. From then on, many insecurities and doubts will haunt the minds of these college education students who will have a big job ahead of them with the best research paper topic.

To help students during this challenging phase of their education, we can help them explore various interesting research paper topics, figure out which one aligns with their interests, and start working on it well ahead of the deadline.

Why Is the Choice of Subject in Research Papers So Important?

The final project of a student who is in college is a research paper. However, the student needs to start working on it before the end of their program. It is known that the sooner you begin this process, the more time and tranquility you will find to develop it. Therefore, a research paper will review what experts on a given subject have published in the literature, making the student choose and defend a point of view concerning a thesis statement. Writing one successfully requires surveys and data to back your idea or topic and choose a good research paper topic.

How to Choose a Research Paper Topic?

Choosing a research paper topic is a crucial step in the research process . It’s important to select a topic that interests you, aligns with your academic goals, and is feasible to research. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to pick a good research paper topic :

Pick a subject that you’re passionate about! If you’re passionate about your subject, the research process will be more relevant, and you will have more research topic ideas.
Concentrate on a doable topic.
You will only be able to focus if your topic is narrow enough.
Examine the subject selection instructions provided in your assignment—request advice from your lecturer or TA.
Always refer to important materials and notes about classes so that you are up to date on the topic.
Brainstorm research topics with a friend. They will be able to help you write your emphasis and raise concerns that will not be present at the time of your presentation.
Consider the following questions for your research topic ideas: who, what, when, where, and why:

WHY did you choose this particular topic? What piques your curiosity about it?

WHO are the sources of information, and who is impacted?

WHAT are the most important questions about this subject?

WHERE does your topic matter most: locally, nationally, or internationally?

WHEN did your topic become important? Is this a current issue or one from the past?

Business Research Paper Topics

A study of the business is current and significant. It allows data and information to be collected about commercial relationships worldwide. In this way, students can delve deeper into an important economics and professional development topic, finding solutions and discussing results. Sometimes, one can get research paper writing to assist in situations where it is inconvenient. Some examples of these business research paper topics include:

The influence of employee benefits on representative efficiency.
The difficulties of managing workgroup conflict.
Start-ups: Examining the challenges that arise during the early stages of a business.
How to work with open and closed systems in business.
Workgroups’ ability to evolve to meet the needs of the future.
Inter-authoritative networks and leadership strategies.
Product and service improvements made in significant cooperation.
How to manage an organization’s emergencies.
The effect of full quality management practices on client retention and satisfaction.
Effective time management as a tool for authoritative endurance.

Media and Communications Research Paper Topics

The research work developed in the area of the media manages to provide students with information about mass communication and its importance. With the advent of the internet and all its nuances, it is increasingly important to develop studies and research to understand the effects of media and communication in the social context. Some communication research topics can explore include:

The influence of the media on real-life relationships.
The role of the media in the expression of social issues.
Consequences of mass media on society’s ethical well-being.
The advantages of using the media to anticipate a crisis.
How the media infringes on citizens’ rights.
What role does the media play in spreading awareness?
The significance of trustworthy ads.
The impact of the media on a country’s political elite.
Is the media good or harmful to the economy?
What role does the media play in technological advancement?

Psychology Research Paper Topics

Many subjects can be approached within the theme of psychology. It is an area of science that allows us to carry out different studies with various themes and views. However, the student must be able to choose an important topic for the psychology and academic context. Your teacher’s attention is drawn to an engaging and novel topic. Here are some ideas for you:

What impact do violent video games have on children’s brain development?
Do violent cartoons impact our children’s behavior and mental health?
What impact does divorce have on a child’s emotional blooming?
An introverted child’s social anxiety and sadness.
How does bullying affect high school or college students’ social interactions?
When a person is in love, how does the brain work?
Differences in the way a man’s and a woman’s brains work
Is there a link between PTSD and Alzheimer’s disease?
Sleep paralysis causes and effects
What is the best way to deal with multiple personality disorders?

Argumentative Research Paper Topics

The student must choose an argumentative research paper topic because you will have to defend a thesis during the work. By opting for a good research paper topic of your interest, you will base yourself on various materials already published on the subject to develop your thoughts and arguments to defend your initial idea chosen as the main subject of your work.

The role of government in addressing income inequality.
The pros and cons of school uniform policies.
Analyzing the effects of violent video games on behavior.
The effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education programs.
The impact of fast food advertising on childhood obesity.
The role of government in regulating online privacy.
The pros and cons of school voucher programs.
Examining the impact of standardized testing on education.
The ethics of capital punishment for juveniles.
The ethics of human organ trafficking.

Controversial Topics for Research Paper

High times or high risks? The legalization of recreational marijuana use.
Locked and loaded: The endless debate on gun control policies.
To kill or not to kill: The ongoing debate on capital punishment.
Drones in the crosshairs: Balancing security and privacy.
The ethics of human cloning and genetic engineering.
Vaccination controversies: Mandates, exemptions, and public health.
Affirmative action under scrutiny: Equity in college admissions.
The ethics of assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Balancing surveillance and civil liberties.
Nuclear power and weapons: Weighing the benefits and risks.
Solitary confinement: Cruel punishment or necessary measure?
Rise of the machines: Artificial intelligence, employment, and ethics.
Animals in entertainment: Whose amusement at what cost?
Privacy vs. security: Government surveillance and individual rights.
Playing God: The ethics of human gene editing and designer babies.
Statues and symbols: The controversy surrounding Confederate memorials.
Fracking unveiled: The controversy surrounding hydraulic fracturing.

Easy Research Paper Topics

The effects of fast food consumption on health.
The benefits of reading for personal development.
Strategies for stress reduction in everyday life.
The role of family in child development.
The history of famous inventions.
Strategies for effective communication in relationships.
The history and impact of social movements.
The influence of advertising on consumer choices.
Strategies for healthy eating on a budget.
The importance of setting goals in life.

Research Topic in Natural Sciences

The impact of ocean acidification on marine life
Exploring the genetic diversity of soil microbes and their influence on crop health.
Studying the impacts of emerging contaminants on freshwater ecosystems.
Understanding the dynamics of emerging zoonotic diseases in wildlife populations.
The use of CRISPR in gene editing.
The use of drones in disaster response.
The effects of light pollution on nocturnal insect communities in urban areas.
Natural toxins in plants: mechanisms, benefits, and risks in agriculture.
Climate change and its effects on algal blooms and water quality in 2023.
The ecological significance of wetland restoration efforts in 2023.

Sociology Research Paper Topics

The sociology discipline is responsible for studying human behavior within society. These studies will address how people behave in social relationships and groups and how cultures and customs emerge. The possibilities for research are endless regarding sociology’s enormous reach and continually changing societal trends. Choose the best easy sociology research topics for yourself. Some topic ideas are:

Is emotional intelligence as crucial as everyone claims?
Is there a misconception that males are better professionals than women?
Is homeschooling a hindrance to children’s socialization?
Abuse marriages have both causes and effects.
We spend too much time on our phones.
The ethics of animal experimentation.
Is recycling beneficial to the environment?
In the United States, is there a stereotype about Mexicans?
Racial preconceptions ruin people.
The need for sex education.

Family Research Paper Topics

It’s not always easy to research family issues. This is mainly because some students may be coming from pleased families. Thus, many concepts might be difficult to comprehend. However, this field of study has the potential to significantly improve the psychological climate in many households throughout the world. Some topics one can research include:

In the family, there has been sexual abuse. The escape plan and organizations that can assist.
Resolving religious issues in families.
Is it possible to rescue oneself from substance abuse in a family if others engage?
Saving family connections while not inheriting the family business.
Balancing between family support and allowing young adults to experience living on their own in the transition to adulthood.
A relationship that is toxic and abusive. Breaking up with a toxic spouse has psychological ramifications.
Children and adults go through phases of grieving after losing a family member. How can we cope as a group?
What issues might parents confront when fostering a child?
When does teen misbehavior become more than a normal desire for independence?
A generational divide exists. The moral and cultural differences. Is this typical?

Discrimination Research Paper Topics

It is undeniable the massive impact that discrimination has in the society of the past and also of the present. Therefore, articles on discrimination and race relations must be the subject of academic research. Research papers on it can probe and proffer solutions through data found. Much research in this area can be developed, addressing relations of age, religion, race, sexual orientation, and any existing social conflict. Some topics to explore are:

Colorism as a kind of discrimination.
Discrimination Against Muslims in the Workplace.
Discrimination Against Asian Americans in Colleges.
Discrimination in the Workplace.
Discrimination against people of color as a result of racial profiling.
Discrimination Against Muslims in the Workplace is an issue that has to be addressed.
Discrimination in the Workplace: How to Manage in an Inclusive Environment.
Discrimination, social exclusion, and violence against LGBT people are issues that the LGBT community faces.
Discrimination and Equality Struggle.
Discrimination based on age in the workplace.

Law Research Paper Topics

Another fundamental form of research is legal research. It is a significant topic and one that allows us to have different approaches and points of view. Each country and each historical time will give us an even greater immersion in laws and legal conduct.

The law can be divided into 21 major areas. Just choose one of them to be the topic of your law research . Some areas of law are constitutional law, environmental law, and criminal law, among others. Some good topics include:

What are the benefits of business rules for institutions and organizations?
What is business law’s actual nature?
What do we know about the classification of business rules and the legal regulation of non-consensual adoption in the United States?
How does the law handle marriage and divorce for mentally ill people?
The cultural influence of transgender marriage and its legal status in different countries.
The environment and private property.
Equal protection under the law and the principle of equality.
The financial pyramid’s legal aspects.
Environment-related crimes.
Exchange Commission and Securities.

Environmental Research Paper Topics

To improve our relationship with nature and preserve it, it is necessary to carry out a lot of debate and research in this area. In this way, we will learn about the importance of ecology and the environment in the lives of all living beings. Developing work on this subject means containing the adverse effects of globalization, industrialization, and the use of nature. This way, we can save ecosystems, avoiding irreparable losses to our planet. Some environment research paper topics are:

Analysis and proposed remedies for lung cancer and radon.
The negative impact of acid rain on aquatic life and natural resources.
What can we do to protect wildlife from being killed by acid rain?
What role did prehistoric creatures have in today’s ecosystems?
The repercussion of air pollution and global warming on human health.
Can recycling assist people worldwide in improving their health?
What can be done to protect coral reefs from being destroyed?
How much are garbage and pesticides to blame for our soil contamination?
How big is the problem of ocean acidification?
Permafrost melting and its impact on climate change.

Education Research Paper Topics

It is known that improving the educational system worldwide is imperative, better serving students and society. However, how can we do this? This type of research aims to make education more efficient and accessible for everyone. Some topics to consider are:

Will one of the aims of modern education be the growth of emotional intelligence?
Discrimination in education and its impact on students’ futures.
Mentally ill persons need to be educated and socialized. There are some similarities and some variances.
Education and censorship. Do we want to protect the pupils, or do we want to help them learn what they need to know?
How do students in inclusive classrooms perform compared to students in non-inclusive classes?
Is it still necessary to have grades in today’s education?
Education and incentive: how to pique the interest of students.
In what ways may modern education be compared to traditional schooling?
Bullying and a negative psychological climate in the classroom. Its influence on educational quality.
The importance of discipline in education and how it affects the learning process.

Science and Technology Research Paper Topics

We can see many positive technical advances in the world these days. However, some have negative consequences. Students must prioritize topics that influence many people’s lives and help develop technological research. At the same time, look at the advantages and preservation of technology in today’s world. Some technology topics include:

What effect does alcohol intake have on athletes who are training?
What influence does ADCC activity research have on HIV treatment?
What function does CDfT-Cell Subsets play in HIV patient progression?
What is the most significant technical breakthrough of the twentieth century?
Is it possible for tech to ever replace human intelligence?
What impact does tech play in genetic engineering’s advancement?
Can microbial factories help solve the raw metals shortage?
Is the paleo diet representative of ancient life? Is it the best diet for people?
Is Europe’s objection to genetically modified crops motivated by science or economic considerations?
Could molecular biology study into uncommon genetic abnormalities possibly lead to new insights into cancer and other diseases?

College Research Paper Topics

Developing research about the dilemmas faced daily by many students within the university environment is also extremely important. In this way, it becomes possible to analyze more objectively all social relations within the college, the influence of social media, the academic development of students, and especially the results that will be reaped in their profession in the future. The education system is an extensive topic with possibilities to develop easy research paper topics. In addition, it is an environment you are probably already familiar with, thus facilitating the data and information collection process. Some topics about it:

The importance of higher education in a professional career for middle ages people.
What are the main reasons that lead students to drop out of college?
Why should people study foreign languages in college?
The influence of the digital world on the university world.
College and the financial hardship faced by many students.
Doubts about choosing the right college.
How to enter the job market after completing college.
What are the main differences between public and private colleges?
The effects of cyberbullying in the university context.
What is the ideal human behaviour in the university environment?

Health Research Paper Topics

Academic work must be developed in Health subjects, seeking to understand better the dynamics of health in different world countries and how this influences people’s lives to have physical well-being. We have recently seen the impact of the Covid-19 virus pandemic on our planet. We have seen the collapse of many health systems in many countries’ human relationships. In addition, we also saw despair and suffering in many families with mental health problems. Therefore, we see how necessary it is to develop research projects that help consolidate better care for the population, promoting health and preventing the emergence of new diseases, especially in third-world countries. Some health research paper topics are:

Support for family members who have lost loved ones to COVID-19.
Adolescent violence as a public health problem.
Assistance for people with disabilities living in rural areas.
Adolescent mental health in public health.
The evolution of the human body over the years.
Health problems caused by the use of pesticides.
How does social media addiction influence people’s health?
Obesity as a public health problem.
Health education in schools and through social media.
How does water quality interfere with public health?

Politics Research Paper Topics

Another research paper topic is politics. Politics is a topic that directly or indirectly involves the lives of all world inhabitants. Through it, we seek our rights, have the strength to fight for our ideologies, and become citizens. Here are some politics research paper topics :

Policies to face global warming.
The presence of politics within the education system.
The influences of the cultural industry in the constitution of public policies.
Political relations during World War I and World War II.
The importance of feminism in the political achievement of women’s right to vote.
Best professional writers on political topics.
Public policy related to an all-female working environment.
The importance of public policies that make people aware of drug use.
The emergence of extremist political ideologies in the 21st century.
The importance of democracy in politics.

History Research Paper Topics

History is essential for humanity to understand the facts that occurred and their relationship with time. From history, we can develop several exciting research topics as it can investigate what men did, thought, felt, and set in all social dynamics thousands of years ago. Historical knowledge is capable of helping to understand human beings, their attitudes, and their evolution. Some history research paper topics are:

The historical development of the electoral college.
Major terrorist attacks throughout history.
The historical and social importance of gender psychology.
The changes that came with the end of the Soviet Union.
The progression of the minimum wage over the years.
The worldwide impacts of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
The emergence of offshore bank accounts work and their social impact.
The Mayan Civilization and Its Cultural Legacy.
The history of dictatorships in South America and funding from the United States.
The democratization of access to course material at History College.

Music Research Paper Topics

Music has been present in humanity since the most remote times. Through music, people can express themselves, have fun, relax, and express their opinions. As it is a vast topic, it is possible to do extensive research. Music also allows you to find funny research paper topics to develop. We selected a few good research paper topics here:

The evolution of the music industry globally.
The influence of music in the treatment of depression.
The importance of still producing and listening to traditional music.
The presence of music in film.
The main legacies of classical music.
Songs about self-esteem that encourage obese people.
School development through music.
The aid of artificial intelligence in the creation of new songs.
The effects of music on brain development.
Songs that address controversial topics and their importance.

Literature Research Paper Topics

Literature is everything that involves the art of the word. We consider literature an instrument capable of making us communicate and interact socially. With literature, we can transmit knowledge, emotions, and stories, and that’s why literature has many good research topics. Literature can provide us with the most interesting research topics. Here are some research paper ideas.

Literature as a tool of corporate social responsibility.
The first forms of literature found.
The use of social media as a way to propagate literature.
A sensitive approach to child abuse in the literature.
Are people switching from literature to social media?
The change of literature after the Industrial Revolution.
Literature as a way to protect children online.
The development of scientific literature for standardized tests in science.
Literature review on computer science.
The importance of developing a thesis statement in literature.

After Choosing the Research Topic

Well, after finding great research paper topics, you will decide which one you like the most and which you are more comfortable writing about. So, once you’ve decided which college research paper topics to cover in your thesis, it’s time to start writing. It is important, right at the beginning, to define your main research question to start researching websites, books, articles, etc. A tip is always to opt for a broader research question, so your first research will have a greater amount of material on your research topics, which will make it easier when choosing an approach and focusing on the main subject of your thesis. Before starting the process of submitting research papers, it is important that an advisor can read and review your text on the chosen research topics.

Closing Thoughts

When you have to choose your research paper topic, there are tons of ideas you can use to embark on your research journey. It is very important that you first carry out thorough research about a good research paper topic so that you can start writing your thesis statement. You can read materials online to know if the topic you want to write on is relevant and has enough data. I hope you can take advantage of all our tips to develop your research papers. The most important thing to consider is that you need to like the topic you choose for a good research paper because it’ll help make writing fun.

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Research Paper Topics

Choose your Topic Smart

What starts well, ends well, so you need to be really careful with research paper topics. The topic of a research paper defines the whole piece of writing. How often have you chosen the book by its title? First impression is often influential, so make sure your topic will attract the reader instantly. By choosing your topic smart, the half of your job is done. That is why we have singled out several secrets on how to pick the best topic for you. Also see the list of 1000 thesis topics .

Browse Research Paper Topics by Category:

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What is the Key to a Perfect Topic for a Research Paper?

The key to a perfect topic includes three main secrets: interest, precision, and innovation.

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It is impossible to do something great if you have no interest in what you are doing. For this reason, make sure you choose the topic that drives you. If you are bored by what you investigate, do not expect that your paper will be exciting. Right now, spend some minutes or even hours thinking about what interests you. Jot down all your preferences in life, science, politics, social issues etc. It will help you get the idea what you can write about.

After realizing what drives you, narrow this general idea to a more specific one. A research paper is not about beating around the bush. You will need clear facts and data. You will have to provide evidence to your ideas. You will need to be precise, specific and convincing.

Finally, the idea of any research is that it should be surprising and distinctive. Think what makes your perspective and approach special. What is the novelty of your research?

Use Technology

If you are still stuck, use technology. Today we have an opportunity to make our lives easier with a bit of technology used. You can find paper topic generators online. This software will examine the category you want to investigate and the keywords from your research. Within several seconds, this program generates paper topics, so you can try it yourself. It can help you get started with your assignment.

100% Effective Advice

We will now give you advice that is 100% effective when picking the topic. Firstly, forget about what others may think about your topic. This is your topic and this is your perception of the world. Stay personal and let your personal style get you the top grades. Secondly, never decide on the topic before analyzing the background for your research. By this we mean, investigate the topic before you start the research proper. It happens quite often that students choose the topic and later they realize there is no data or information to use. That is why conduct some research beforehand. Thirdly, read other researchers’ papers on the topic you want to write about. It will help you get the idea of the investigation. Moreover, it will help you understand whether you truly want to write a paper on this topic. Finally, when you have picked the topic, started your research, make sure you dedicate your time and energy. If you want to get high results, you need to study every little details of your research.

Examine Different Ideas

People often come up with genius ideas after analyzing thousands of other people’s ideas. This is how our brain works. That is why you can analyze other people’s ideas for research paper topics and think up your own. If you have never written any paper of that kind, it will help you understand the gist of this assignment, the style and the requirements. By comparing different topics, you can motivate yourself and get inspired with these ideas. Luckily, you have come to the right place. Here is our list of top 100 research paper topics.

What Makes a Good Topic for a Research Paper?

A good research paper topic is the one that is successful and manageable in your particular case. A successful research paper poses an interesting question you can actually answer. Just as important, it poses a question you can answer within the time available. The question should be one that interests you and deserves exploration. It might be an empirical question or a theoretical puzzle. In some fields, it might be a practical problem or policy issue. Whatever the question is, you need to mark off its boundaries clearly and intelligently so you can complete the research paper and not get lost in the woods. That means your topic should be manageable as well as interesting and important.

A topic is manageable if you can:

Master the relevant literature
Collect and analyze the necessary data
Answer the key questions you have posed
Do it all within the time available, with the skills you have

A topic is important if it:

Touches directly on major theoretical issues and debates, or
Addresses substantive topics of great interest in your field

Ideally, your topic can do both, engaging theoretical and substantive issues. In elementary education, for example, parents, teachers, scholars, and public officials all debate the effectiveness of charter schools, the impact of vouchers, and the value of different reading programs. A research paper on any of these would resonate within the university and well beyond it. Still, as you approach such topics, you need to limit the scope of your investigation so you can finish your research and writing on time. After all, to be a good research paper, it first has to be a completed one. A successful research paper poses an interesting question you can actually answer within the time available for the project. Some problems are simply too grand, too sweeping to master within the time limits. Some are too minor to interest you or anybody else.

The solution, however, is not to find a lukewarm bowl of porridge, a bland compromise. Nor is it to abandon your interest in larger, more profound issues such as the relationship between school organization and educational achievement or between immigration and poverty. Rather, the solution is to select a well-defined topic that is closely linked to some larger issue and then explore that link. Your research paper will succeed if you nail a well-defined topic. It will rise to excellence if you probe that topic deeply and show how it illuminates wider issues.The best theses deal with important issues, framed in manageable ways. The goal is to select a well-defined topic that is closely linked to some larger issue and can illuminate it.

You can begin your project with either a large issue or a narrowly defined topic, depending on your interests and the ideas you have generated. Whichever way you start, the goals are the same: to connect the two in meaningful ways and to explore your specific topic in depth.

Of course, the choice of a particular research paper topic depends on the course you’re taking. Our site can offer you the following research paper topics and example research papers:

Moving from a Research Paper Idea to a Research Paper Topic

Let’s begin as most students actually do, by going from a “big issue” to a more manageable research paper topic. Suppose you start with a big question such as, “Why has the United States fought so many wars since 1945?” That’s certainly a big, important question. Unfortunately, it’s too complex and sprawling to cover well in a research paper. Working with your professor or instructor, you could zero in on a related but feasible research topic, such as “Why did the Johnson administration choose to escalate the U.S. war in Vietnam?” By choosing this topic, your research paper can focus on a specific war and, within that, on a few crucial years in the mid-1960s.

You can draw on major works covering all aspects of the Vietnam War and the Johnson administration’s decision making. You have access to policy memos that were once stamped top secret. These primary documents have now been declassified, published by the State Department, and made available to research libraries. Many are readily available on the Web. You can also take advantage of top-quality secondary sources (that is, books and articles based on primary documents, interviews, and other research data).

Drawing on these primary and secondary sources, you can uncover and critique the reasons behind U.S. military escalation. As you answer this well-defined question about Vietnam, you can (and you should) return to the larger themes that interest you, namely, “What does the escalation in Southeast Asia tell us about the global projection of U.S. military power since 1945?” As one of America’s largest military engagements since World War II, the war in Vietnam should tell us a great deal about the more general question.

The goal here is to pick a good case to study, one that is compelling in its own right and speaks to the larger issue. It need not be a typical example, but it does need to illuminate the larger question. Some cases are better than others precisely because they illuminate larger issues. That’s why choosing the best cases makes such a difference in your research paper.

Since you are interested in why the United States has fought so often since 1945, you probably shouldn’t focus on U.S. invasions of Grenada, Haiti, or Panama in the past two decades. Why? Because the United States has launched numerous military actions against small, weak states in the Caribbean for more than a century. That is important in its own right, but it doesn’t say much about what has changed so dramatically since 1945. The real change since 1945 is the projection of U.S. power far beyond the Western Hemisphere, to Europe and Asia. You cannot explain this change—or any change, for that matter—by looking at something that remains constant.

In this case, to analyze the larger pattern of U.S. war fighting and the shift it represents, you need to pick examples of distant conflicts, such as Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Iraq. That’s the noteworthy change since 1945: U.S. military intervention outside the Western Hemisphere. The United States has fought frequently in such areas since World War II but rarely before then. Alternatively, you could use statistics covering many cases of U.S. intervention around the world, perhaps supplemented with some telling cases studies.

Students in the humanities want to explore their own big ideas, and they, too, need to focus their research. In English literature, their big issue might be “masculinity” or, to narrow the range a bit, “masculinity in Jewish American literature.” Important as these issues are, they are too vast for anyone to read all the major novels plus all the relevant criticism and then frame a comprehensive research paper.

If you don’t narrow these sprawling topics and focus your work, you can only skim the surface. Skimming the surface is not what you want to do in a research paper. You want to understand your subject in depth and convey that understanding to your readers.

That does not mean you have to abandon your interest in major themes. It means you have to restrict their scope in sensible ways. To do that, you need to think about which aspects of masculinity really interest you and then find works that deal with them.

You may realize your central concern is how masculinity is defined in response to strong women. That focus would still leave you considerable flexibility, depending on your academic background and what you love to read. That might be anything from a reconsideration of Macbeth to an analysis of early twentieth-century American novels, where men must cope with women in assertive new roles. Perhaps you are interested in another aspect of masculinity: the different ways it is defined within the same culture at the same moment. That would lead you to novelists who explore these differences in their characters, perhaps contrasting men who come from different backgrounds, work in different jobs, or simply differ emotionally. Again, you would have considerable flexibility in choosing specific writers.

Connecting a Specific Research Paper Topic to a Bigger Idea

Not all students begin their research paper concerned with big issues such as masculinity or American wars over the past half century. Some start with very specific topics in mind. One example might be the decision to create NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement encompassing Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Perhaps you are interested in NAFTA because you discussed it in a course, heard about it in a political campaign, or saw its effects firsthand on local workers, companies, and consumers. It intrigues you, and you would like to study it in a research paper. The challenge is to go from this clear-cut subject to a larger theme that will frame your paper.

Why do you even need to figure out a larger theme? Because NAFTA bears on several major topics, and you cannot explore all of them. Your challenge—and your opportunity—is to figure out which one captures your imagination.

One way to think about that is to finish this sentence: “For me, NAFTA is a case of ___________.” If you are mainly interested in negotiations between big and small countries, then your answer is, “For me, NAFTA is a case of a large country like the United States bargaining with a smaller neighbor.” Your answer would be different if you are mainly interested in decision making within the United States, Mexico, or Canada. In that case, you might say, “NAFTA seems to be a case where a strong U.S. president pushed a trade policy through Congress.” Perhaps you are more concerned with the role played by business lobbies. “For me, NAFTA is a case of undue corporate influence over foreign economic policy.” Or you could be interested in the role of trade unions, environmental groups, or public opinion.

The NAFTA decision is related to all these big issues and more. You cannot cover them all. There is not enough time, and even if there were, the resulting paper would be too diffuse, too scattershot. To make an impact, throw a rock, not a handful of pebbles.

Choosing one of these large issues will shape your research paper on NAFTA. If you are interested in U.S. decision making, for example, you might study the lobbying process or perhaps the differences between Democrats and Republicans. If you are interested in diplomacy, you would focus on negotiations between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Either would make an interesting research paper, but they are different topics.

Although the subject matter and analysis are decidedly different in the humanities, many of the same considerations still apply to topic selection. In English or comparative literature, for example, you may be attracted to a very specific topic such as several poems by William Wordsworth. You are not trying, as a social scientist would, to test some generalizations that apply across time or space. Rather, you want to analyze these specific poems, uncover their multiple meanings, trace their allusions, and understand their form and beauty.

As part of the research paper, however, you may wish to say something bigger, something that goes beyond these particular poems. That might be about Wordsworth’s larger body of work. Are these poems representative or unusual? Do they break with his previous work or anticipate work yet to come? You may wish to comment on Wordsworth’s close ties to his fellow “Lake Poets,” Coleridge and Southey, underscoring some similarities in their work. Do they use language in shared ways? Do they use similar metaphors or explore similar themes? You may even wish to show how these particular poems are properly understood as part of the wider Romantic movement in literature and the arts. Any of these would connect the specific poems to larger themes.

How to Refine Your Research Paper Topic

One of your professor’s or instructor’s most valuable contributions to the success of your research paper is to help you refine your topic. She can help you select the best cases for detailed study or the best data and statistical techniques. S/he can help you find cases that shed light on larger questions, have good data available, and are discussed in a rich secondary literature. She may know valuable troves of documents to explore. That’s why it is so important to bring these issues up in early meetings. These discussions with your instructor are crucial in moving from a big but ill-defined idea to a smart, feasible topic.Some colleges supplement this advising process by offering special workshops and tutorial support for students. These are great resources, and you should take full advantage of them. They can improve your project in at least two ways.

First, tutors and workshop leaders are usually quite adept at helping you focus and shape your topic. That’s what they do best. Even if they are relatively new teachers, they have been writing research papers themselves for many years. They know how to do it well and how to avoid common mistakes. To craft their own papers, they have learned how to narrow their topics, gather data, interpret sources, and evaluate conjectures. They know how to use appropriate methods and how to mine the academic literature. In all these ways, they can assist you with their own hard-won experience. To avoid any confusion, just make sure your instructor knows what advice you are getting from workshop leaders and tutors. You want everyone to be pulling in the same direction.

Second, you will benefit enormously from batting around your research paper in workshops. The more you speak about your subject, the better you will understand it yourself. The better you understand it, the clearer your research and writing will be. You will learn about your project as you present your ideas; you will learn more as you listen to others discuss your work; and you will learn still more as you respond to their suggestions. Although you should do that in sessions with your instructor, you will also profit from doing it in workshops and tutorial sessions.

Secrets to Keep in Mind when Writing a Research Paper

As a bonus, we have prepared several secrets for you to make your paper perfect. Firstly, always write your paper from scratch. Do not copy the already existing materials, as it can lead to unsatisfactory mark or even expulsion. Secondly, start your research early; do not put off investigating the topic. The earlier you start, the easier it will be to meet the deadline. Thirdly, plan your work and create an outline for your task. A planned work will help you be systematic. Plus, it will help you avoid writer’s block, as you always have an outline to follow. Another secret is following all the requirements. A research paper is an academic assignment, so all these structural and formatting standards are important. Finally, make sure you proofread and edit your task. Check your paper for grammar and spelling mistakes, examine your choice of vocabulary. If it seems too much, you can always ask our professional editors and they will check the paper for you. A mistakes-free paper is essential to get high results.

Custom Research Paper Writing Service

If you still have concerns regarding your research paper, we are here to answer your questions. It is no secret that studying is becoming more and more difficult at college. Every week you have an overload of tasks and assignments. You work hard, sleep little. As a result, you can be at the edge of a nervous breakdown trying to finish all the tasks on time. That is why we are here helping thousands of students to study smart.

24/7 you can contact us and order your paper. We never miss the deadline and always provide our clients with a top-notch quality. When you feel that you cannot handle it on your own, a bit of assistance will do no harm. All our writers are experts with years of experience. They are aware of all the subtleties of academic writing and they know all the recent college requirements. You can turn to us for help any time and we will get down to work immediately. From choosing the topic to writing the whole paper – this is what we have to offer. Getting top grades is much easier when the real professionals help you.

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50+ Research Topics for Psychology Papers

How to Find Psychology Research Topics for Your Student Paper

Specific Branches of Psychology
Topics Involving a Disorder or Type of Therapy
Human Cognition
Human Development
Critique of Publications
Famous Experiments
Historical Figures
Specific Careers
Case Studies
Literature Reviews
Your Own Study/Experiment

Are you searching for a great topic for your psychology paper ? Sometimes it seems like coming up with topics of psychology research is more challenging than the actual research and writing. Fortunately, there are plenty of great places to find inspiration and the following list contains just a few ideas to help get you started.

Finding a solid topic is one of the most important steps when writing any type of paper. It can be particularly important when you are writing a psychology research paper or essay. Psychology is such a broad topic, so you want to find a topic that allows you to adequately cover the subject without becoming overwhelmed with information.

I can always tell when a student really cares about the topic they chose; it comes through in the writing. My advice is to choose a topic that genuinely interests you, so you’ll be more motivated to do thorough research.

In some cases, such as in a general psychology class, you might have the option to select any topic from within psychology's broad reach. Other instances, such as in an abnormal psychology course, might require you to write your paper on a specific subject such as a psychological disorder.

As you begin your search for a topic for your psychology paper, it is first important to consider the guidelines established by your instructor.

Research Topics Within Specific Branches of Psychology

The key to selecting a good topic for your psychology paper is to select something that is narrow enough to allow you to really focus on the subject, but not so narrow that it is difficult to find sources or information to write about.

One approach is to narrow your focus down to a subject within a specific branch of psychology. For example, you might start by deciding that you want to write a paper on some sort of social psychology topic. Next, you might narrow your focus down to how persuasion can be used to influence behavior .

Other social psychology topics you might consider include:

Prejudice and discrimination (i.e., homophobia, sexism, racism)
Social cognition
Person perception
Social control and cults
Persuasion, propaganda, and marketing
Attraction, romance, and love
Nonverbal communication
Prosocial behavior

Psychology Research Topics Involving a Disorder or Type of Therapy

Exploring a psychological disorder or a specific treatment modality can also be a good topic for a psychology paper. Some potential abnormal psychology topics include specific psychological disorders or particular treatment modalities, including:

Eating disorders
Borderline personality disorder
Seasonal affective disorder
Schizophrenia
Antisocial personality disorder
Profile a type of therapy (i.e., cognitive-behavioral therapy, group therapy, psychoanalytic therapy)

Topics of Psychology Research Related to Human Cognition

Some of the possible topics you might explore in this area include thinking, language, intelligence, and decision-making. Other ideas might include:

False memories
Speech disorders
Problem-solving

Topics of Psychology Research Related to Human Development

In this area, you might opt to focus on issues pertinent to early childhood such as language development, social learning, or childhood attachment or you might instead opt to concentrate on issues that affect older adults such as dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

Some other topics you might consider include:

Language acquisition
Media violence and children
Learning disabilities
Gender roles
Child abuse
Prenatal development
Parenting styles
Aspects of the aging process

Do a Critique of Publications Involving Psychology Research Topics

One option is to consider writing a critique paper of a published psychology book or academic journal article. For example, you might write a critical analysis of Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams or you might evaluate a more recent book such as Philip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil .

Professional and academic journals are also great places to find materials for a critique paper. Browse through the collection at your university library to find titles devoted to the subject that you are most interested in, then look through recent articles until you find one that grabs your attention.

Topics of Psychology Research Related to Famous Experiments

There have been many fascinating and groundbreaking experiments throughout the history of psychology, providing ample material for students looking for an interesting term paper topic. In your paper, you might choose to summarize the experiment, analyze the ethics of the research, or evaluate the implications of the study. Possible experiments that you might consider include:

The Milgram Obedience Experiment
The Stanford Prison Experiment
The Little Albert Experiment
Pavlov's Conditioning Experiments
The Asch Conformity Experiment
Harlow's Rhesus Monkey Experiments

Topics of Psychology Research About Historical Figures

One of the simplest ways to find a great topic is to choose an interesting person in the history of psychology and write a paper about them. Your paper might focus on many different elements of the individual's life, such as their biography, professional history, theories, or influence on psychology.

While this type of paper may be historical in nature, there is no need for this assignment to be dry or boring. Psychology is full of fascinating figures rife with intriguing stories and anecdotes. Consider such famous individuals as Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner, Harry Harlow, or one of the many other eminent psychologists .

Psychology Research Topics About a Specific Career

Another possible topic, depending on the course in which you are enrolled, is to write about specific career paths within the field of psychology . This type of paper is especially appropriate if you are exploring different subtopics or considering which area interests you the most.

In your paper, you might opt to explore the typical duties of a psychologist, how much people working in these fields typically earn, and the different employment options that are available.

Topics of Psychology Research Involving Case Studies

One potentially interesting idea is to write a psychology case study of a particular individual or group of people. In this type of paper, you will provide an in-depth analysis of your subject, including a thorough biography.

Generally, you will also assess the person, often using a major psychological theory such as Piaget's stages of cognitive development or Erikson's eight-stage theory of human development . It is also important to note that your paper doesn't necessarily have to be about someone you know personally.

In fact, many professors encourage students to write case studies on historical figures or fictional characters from books, television programs, or films.

Psychology Research Topics Involving Literature Reviews

Another possibility that would work well for a number of psychology courses is to do a literature review of a specific topic within psychology. A literature review involves finding a variety of sources on a particular subject, then summarizing and reporting on what these sources have to say about the topic.

Literature reviews are generally found in the introduction of journal articles and other psychology papers , but this type of analysis also works well for a full-scale psychology term paper.

Topics of Psychology Research Based on Your Own Study or Experiment

Many psychology courses require students to design an actual psychological study or perform some type of experiment. In some cases, students simply devise the study and then imagine the possible results that might occur. In other situations, you may actually have the opportunity to collect data, analyze your findings, and write up your results.

Finding a topic for your study can be difficult, but there are plenty of great ways to come up with intriguing ideas. Start by considering your own interests as well as subjects you have studied in the past.

Online sources, newspaper articles, books , journal articles, and even your own class textbook are all great places to start searching for topics for your experiments and psychology term papers. Before you begin, learn more about how to conduct a psychology experiment .

What This Means For You

After looking at this brief list of possible topics for psychology papers, it is easy to see that psychology is a very broad and diverse subject. While this variety makes it possible to find a topic that really catches your interest, it can sometimes make it very difficult for some students to select a good topic.

If you are still stumped by your assignment, ask your instructor for suggestions and consider a few from this list for inspiration.

Hockenbury, SE & Nolan, SA. Psychology. New York: Worth Publishers; 2014.
Santrock, JW. A Topical Approach to Lifespan Development. New York: McGraw-Hill Education; 2016.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Examples of Research Paper Topics in Different Study Areas

Posted by Rene Tetzner | Sep 19, 2021 | How To Get Published | 0 |

72 Examples of Research Paper Topics in 18 Different Study Areas The examples of research paper topics listed in this post range across disciplines and fields of study to help a wide range of academics, scientists and students choose and develop topics with true research potential that will prove engaging not only for those authors, but also for their readers. A topic of particular personal interest & relevance to the researcher & his or her life tends to make the research and writing processes more exciting and enjoyable. It can also be helpful to know a little about a topic in advance, but prior knowledge is never as important as a true passion for a topic.

The topic chosen for a research paper must be appropriate for the field of study and observe any specific guidelines or requirements associated with the intended paper. The editor of a literary journal, for instance, or the instructor of a literature course will want a paper exploring some aspect of literature, usually the literature of a particular period, genre, style or author, and the same kind of focus will also be required in other research areas. The length and scope of the paper as well as the time available to complete the research and writing should certainly be considered when choosing a topic, and it is always wise to preview recently published sources on a topic to determine how the topic has been treated in scholarship and whether there is enough material to enable the new research. Topics that are of concern to both specialists and more general readers tend to be particularly successful, so I have aimed for topics of this kind in the list below. Areas of interest appear in alphabetical order, and helpful tips are offered amidst the example topics.

ANIMALS & ANIMAL RIGHTS 1. Consider animal testing in relation to animal rights. Do the benefits of animal testing outweigh the suffering of laboratory animals or not? This topic could be wide and general or very closely focussed on one kind of animal or the testing that takes place in a single laboratory. 2. Should animals be used by humans as food? This could include a study of slaughterhouses and processing facilities and perhaps an argument for or against a vegetarian or vegan diet. 3. There should (or should not) be greater penalties for cruelty to animals. Specific instances and their legal ramifications could be described and discussed as meaningful case studies. 4. Is it right to use animals in sports and entertainment? Animals that become hunting trophies, captive cetaceans entertaining tourists, rodeo horses, circus elephants, animals in film, etc. – the possibilities for discussion are virtually endless. Tip: Always be sure to support whatever argument you pursue with convincing evidence acquired through sound research methods. Opinions and feelings may play a part in choosing a research topic and formulating ideas, but they are not enough on their own, no matter how strong or fashionable they may be.

ART & ART HISTORY 1. Art is (or is not) a vital aspect of a primary (or secondary) school education and should (or should not) be included in the curriculum. Discuss. Tip: Since most authors of research papers are well educated, this is the type of topic that could easily include evidence derived from the researcher’s own experiences, whether positive or negative. 2. The importance (or perhaps role) of illustrations in children’s books. A selection of different examples to compare and contrast or a close focus on a particular book, series or author would prove effective. Alternatively, the use of art in books written for adults could be considered. 3. Discuss a work of art in relation to a poem or story, a piece of music, a remarkable building or some other product of human creativity. This topic encourages an interdisciplinary approach that can be particularly interesting, but careful thought should be given to choosing the pieces for comparison. 4. Art history courses often define and describe art periods, styles, schools and the like, so exploring the characteristics, development or impact of any of those or of a particular artist makes a good topic. If specialised terminology is required for this topic, it should be carefully explained and used both accurately and consistently.

COMPUTERS & COMPUTER SCIENCE 1. Mac versus PC: which computer is better and why? Opinions tend to be strong and in many cases uninformed on this issue, which can be an important point for discussion, but it is essential in a research paper to investigate and discuss the facts about the two types of computer. 2. Do spell checkers, grammar checkers and autocorrect functions strengthen or weaken the writing skills of computer users? Consider more than one of these tools in the investigation. 3. Identify the next great development in computer science and discuss why you think it will be so very important. 4. What role or roles do you think artificial intelligence is now playing and/or will in the future play in human evolution?

ECONOMICS & BUSINESS STUDIES 1. Is the wealth of the world distributed equally among its people? What could be done to promote greater equality? 2. Consider the consequences of some aspect of salaries or pay that is currently in the news, such as early-career professionals working for free, promotions given without raises or unacceptably low minimum wages. 3. In what ways and to what degree do social media and networking sites function as instruments for business promotion? 4. Are large corporations able to break the law and get away with it in ways that small businesses and individuals cannot? Why or why not? Tip: Topic 4 here is the type of topic for which there may be far more opinions than actual facts available, so it is important to be especially careful about the quality of evidence used to support an argument.

EDUCATION & SCHOOLS 1. Explore the benefits and drawbacks of a ‘no child left behind’ educational policy. 2. Bullying occurs in the schools of many countries. How serious do you think the problem is in your area, and what, if anything, could be done to improve the situation? 3. Plagiarism is on the rise in modern universities, yet many accused students appear not to understand their error. Explore the concept of plagiarism in the twenty-first century and discuss its consequences. 4. Does religion have a valid place in public schools? If so, what might its role be? If not, why not?

ENGLISH LITERATURE 1. Compare and contrast two different literary texts or the writing of two different authors. Consider a number of aspects such as genre, style, character development, metaphor, imagery and word play in examining and discussing the texts. Tip: Comparing and contrasting two or more things, events or problems in a research paper can be a useful approach for initiating and focussing an investigation. The secret to success is to choose the items for comparison with care and to narrow the topic as much as necessary for the intended paper. 2. Discuss the role, suppression and/or rediscovery of pre-twentieth-century women authors in the English literary canon as it is usually taught in schools. 3. Investigate and discuss the sophisticated use of irony to establish character and communicate potentially unwelcome concepts to readers in the writing of a major author such as Chaucer, Shakespeare or Dickens. 4. Does quality literature have a positive effect on society? Does it make readers wiser, more perceptive, more empathetic or perhaps better writers? Views can be supported with both personal and research-based evidence.

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES & GLOBAL WARMING 1. Is global warming a reality or a hoax? If it really is happening, what are the primary causes? Can humanity make a difference? 2. Oil and mineral exploration has recently taken place in and very close to wildlife reserves and national parks. Consider whether this should be allowed or not. 3. Investigate power sources in your region or country. Are they environmentally sound? What sources of alternate energy might be especially well suited to the area and why? 4. Learn all you can about an endangered wildlife species or group in your locality. Consider the current state of the animals, the reasons why they have become endangered and the actions that have been used and could be used to increase their chances of survival. Tip: A great deal of propaganda is generated around certain issues of current concern, and environmental matters are certainly among them. It is therefore imperative to look for the signs of authoritative scientific reporting as you conduct your research and to be both specific and precise in discussing subjects and events.

FAMILIES, FOOD & NUTRITION 1. Explore the relationship between nutrition and family health. This topic could easily be narrowed to focus, for instance, on breastfeeding and baby health or perhaps the health and social benefits of a family sitting down together over a home-cooked meal. 2. How have fast-food restaurants affected family nutrition and health? Should the menus of such restaurants be regulated? 3. Investigate local family farms and food producers in your area to determine how much of your diet could be acquired from these sources. What would be missing? Would an attempt to purchase as much of your food from local sources as possible result in changes to your diet? 4. Should parents be able to spank their children? Why or why not?

HEALTH & MEDICINE 1. Explore one of the health problems that currently pose particular challenges for humanity and are under intense investigation in the published scholarship: depression, Alzheimer’s, cancer, AIDS and autism are good examples. Consider how the condition affects individuals and society and what might be done to alleviate suffering and cost. 2. Study a group of teenagers under treatment for depression to discover common predictors of the disease and suggest how this information could help in the prevention of teenage depression. Tip: As the first two topics here indicate, when writing a research paper about human health an author should usually dedicate part of the discussion to improving the lives of the people under investigation. 3. Do the benefits of vaccinating children outweigh the risks? Consider different types of vaccinations, the frequency and nature of complications, and the risks to society. 4. Should healthcare and medication be available free of charge to all people? Why or why not?

HISTORY 1. Investigate and discuss the importance of a major historical event, such as the first moon landing or the assassination of J.F. Kennedy, of some decisive battle or war, such as the Battle of Hastings or the American Civil War, or of some revolutionary document, such as Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence. Why was it so very important? 2. Did Columbus really ‘discover’ America first? Consider other voyagers – the Vikings and Chinese, for instance – as well as native populations. 3. Explore the role and importance of salt in world history. This topic could be productively narrowed to focus on a particular region or period. 4. Learn about a historical individual, family or group through their books. The extensive devotional library of a twelfth-century monastery, the single anthology of romances owned by a fifteenth-century merchant family or the esoteric book collection cherished by a renaissance scholar could be considered in terms of content and examined for reader responses. The possibilities are endless as long as the books can be firmly connected with their historical readers.

THE INTERNET 1. Has the internet affected the ways in which academic and scientific research is published and made available to readers? Consider factors such as open access, publisher paywalls, article retractions and scholarly blogs. 2. Does frequent use of the internet enhance or undermine a child’s health, development, education and/or social skills? Consider what children are doing online as well as what they might be doing were they not online. 3. How big an issue is online security or cyber security as far as you are concerned? What makes you feel safe and secure about your online activities? What might make you feel safer? 4. Examine one or more of the major problems associated with the internet such as child pornography, erroneous information or copyright infringement. Are there effective ways to prevent or eliminate such problems?

LAW 1. Look into the incarceration rates in your country. Are they higher or lower than the rates in other countries? Can you detect a reason for any significant differences? Do you think incarceration is an effective solution for managing crime and promoting the rehabilitation of criminals? 2. Gun control has been an issue of hot debate in recent years. Consider a variety of perspectives as you argue your view of the matter. 3. Should people be legally able to take their own lives when they are suffering from a debilitating terminal disease? Discuss. 4. Despite negative publicity and dire consequences, drivers continue to text while operating vehicles. Why do you think this happens and what would be the most effective way to prevent the problem?

MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS 1. Marketing invades nearly every aspect of modern life. Based on your own experience and that of friends and family, do you think the impact of these impersonal communications is predominantly positive or negative? 2. What kind of regulations or limitations apply to marketing products to children in your country or region? Are they appropriate, inadequate or excessive? 3. Discuss the pros and cons of outsourcing customer services. Comparing the views of customers with that of businesses will no doubt prove enlightening. 4. Has all the communicating we do via text messaging, email, social media, blog sites and professional online platforms improved our ability to communicate in person? Be sure to share your reasoning and support your viewpoint.

POLITICS 1. Investigate and discuss the unique nature of the Trump presidency and its implications both within the United States and beyond. Tip: For many research paper topics, including the one above, it is essential to recognise your own national and political perspective (Republican American, Liberal Canadian, etc.), to achieve some level of objectivity and to support your argument with research-based evidence. 2. Examine the conditions and forces associated with the rise of Nazi Germany. Was WWII inevitable? The focus of this topic could be shifted to any major war, such as WWI, the Battle of Hastings or the American Civil War. Discussion of a war’s aftermath can be of interest as well. 3. An enormous amount of money is spent on political advertising during election campaigns, which usually leaves neighbourhoods cluttered with flyers and posters. Is this a legitimate expense? Should parties be responsible for cleaning up the litter after a campaign? 4. Choose a significant political scandal or event that has recently occurred in your country or region and discuss how it began or occurred, how news of it was spread and how it affected individuals and society in the area.

RELIGION & BELIEFS 1. Are dreams meaningful or simply games of the sleeping mind? Research a variety of perspectives on the matter and consider the possible functions and causes of dreams such as prophecy, therapy, eating before bed or falling asleep in an anxious or troubled state. 2. Why are religious cults so appealing and powerful? Consider individual cases in your discussion. 3. Does the regular attendance of citizens at formal religious services have an impact on crime in a region? This topic could be narrowed by choosing a specific type of crime or focussing on children, teenagers or families. 4. Education rather than indoctrination is an ideal for the role of religion in schools. How might this ideal be achieved? Tip: When discussing religion and beliefs, be sure to avoid unsubstantiated value judgements. Instead, base your interpretations firmly on the evidence gleaned from sound research practices.

SOCIOLOGY & SOCIAL CONCERNS 1. Should parents be allowed to engineer designer babies? Different situations and reasons for genetic manipulation should be considered along with a variety of perspectives on the matter. 2. The successful settlement of immigrants in a new country often depends upon the social services immediately available to them. What sort of financial, medical and educational assistance does your country provide for immigrants and refugees when they arrive? Should more or less be provided? 3. Terrorism creates a fear culture that can become a society’s own unintentional terrorist. Explore and discuss how this is true or false of the effects of terrorism in the twenty-first century. 4. Discuss gay rights in relation to your own community. Consider whether gay marriage is permitted, whether gay couples can adopt children, whether gay individuals are welcome at religious services and social events, whether gay pride is publicly displayed and other telltale signs. Could the situation be better?

TECHNOLOGY & INDUSTRIALISATION 1. How did the steel sword, the long bow, gunpowder, airplanes, biological warfare or the atomic bomb change the nature of warfare forever? The focus could be on one of these technological developments or two or more could be compared in a single paper. 2. Investigate how home computers, tablets and smart phones have changed human beings, their behaviours and their culture. Be sure to consult published scholarship on the topic as well as your own experience. Tip: The first of the topics above focuses on historical impacts, whereas the second investigates a current impact, but both should be approached in a research paper context with an equally formal and objective perspective. 3. Railroads and trains have been identified as primary forces in the exploitation, settlement and industrialisation of countries and continents. How is this true or not of your homeland? 4. How has the use of fossil fuels shaped the modern world? This topic could be narrowed to focus on a particular or local area or on one major effect of the predominance of fossil fuels, such as pollution from oil spills or the slow development of alternate energy sources.

WOMEN’S STUDIES 1. Many young women suffer from anorexia and bulimia. Learn all you can about these eating disorders, their causes and their symptoms. How significant is the impact and what might improve the situation? 2. Investigate a major event or development in women’s history, such as the suffrage movement, the admission of women to institutes of higher education, the Salem witch trials or the legalisation of birth control or abortion. What were the immediate and lasting implications of the event or development? 3. Women still tend to earn less money than men for performing the same jobs and duties. Consider specific examples as you discuss why this is the case and suggest how the problem might be realistically remedied. 4. Do beauty contests empower or objectify women? This topic might be shifted to focus instead on female strippers, nude centrefolds or the women who act in pornographic films.

Tip: When writing about research of the kind outlined in the last topic here, do remember to be tactful and professional when presenting evidence. The point is to persuade, not offend your readers.

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Summary This post provides seventy-two examples of engaging research paper topics arranged in eighteen different study areas

Examples of Research Paper Topics

About the author.

Rene Tetzner

Rene Tetzner's blog posts dedicated to academic and scientific writing and publishing. Although the focus is on publishing research papers in peer-reviewed journals, many other important aspects of research-based writing, editing and publishing are addressed in helpful detail.

Choosing the Right Journal

September 10, 2021

Example of a Quantitative Research Paper

September 4, 2021

What Is a Good H-Index Required for an Academic Position?

September 3, 2021

Acknowledgements Example for an Academic Research Paper

September 1, 2021

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Insights blog

How to write and structure a journal article

Sharing your research data can be hugely beneficial to your career , as well as to the scholarly community and wider society. But before you do so, there are some important ethical considerations to remember.

What are the rules and guidance you should follow, when you begin to think about how to write and structure a journal article? Ruth First Prize winner Steven Rogers, PhD said the first thing is to be passionate about what you write.

Steven Nabieu Rogers, Ruth First Prize winner.

Let’s go through some of the best advice that will help you pinpoint the features of a journal article, and how to structure it into a compelling research paper.

Planning for your article

When planning to write your article, make sure it has a central message that you want to get across. This could be a novel aspect of methodology that you have in your PhD study, a new theory, or an interesting modification you have made to theory or a novel set of findings.

2018 NARST Award winner Marissa Rollnick advised that you should decide what this central focus is, then create a paper outline bearing in mind the need to:

Isolate a manageable size

Create a coherent story/argument

Make the argument self-standing

Target the journal readership

Change the writing conventions from that used in your thesis

Vector illustration of 4 puzzle pieces, three are shades of blue, one is pink.

Get familiar with the journal you want to submit to

It is a good idea to choose your target journal before you start to write your paper. Then you can tailor your writing to the journal’s requirements and readership, to increase your chances of acceptance.

When selecting your journal think about audience, purposes, what to write about and why. Decide the kind of article to write. Is it a report, position paper, critique or review? What makes your argument or research interesting? How might the paper add value to the field?

If you need more guidance on how to choose a journal, here is our guide to narrow your focus.

Once you’ve chosen your target journal, take the time to read a selection of articles already published – particularly focus on those that are relevant to your own research.

This can help you get an understanding of what the editors may be looking for, then you can guide your writing efforts.

The Think. Check. Submit. initiative provides tools to help you evaluate whether the journal you’re planning to send your work to is trustworthy.

The journal’s aims and scope is also an important resource to refer back to as you write your paper – use it to make sure your article aligns with what the journal is trying to accomplish.

Keep your message focused

The next thing you need to consider when writing your article is your target audience. Are you writing for a more general audience or is your audience experts in the same field as you? The journal you have chosen will give you more information on the type of audience that will read your work.

When you know your audience, focus on your main message to keep the attention of your readers. A lack of focus is a common problem and can get in the way of effective communication.

Stick to the point. The strongest journal articles usually have one point to make. They make that point powerfully, back it up with evidence, and position it within the field.

How to format and structure a journal article

The format and structure of a journal article is just as important as the content itself, it helps to clearly guide the reader through.

How do I format a journal article?

Individual journals will have their own specific formatting requirements, which you can find in the instructions for authors.

You can save time on formatting by downloading a template from our library of templates to apply to your article text. These templates are accepted by many of our journals. Also, a large number of our journals now offer format-free submission, which allows you to submit your paper without formatting your manuscript to meet that journal’s specific requirements.

General structure for writing an academic journal article

The title of your article is one of the first indicators readers will get of your research and concepts. It should be concise, accurate, and informative. You should include your most relevant keywords in your title, but avoid including abbreviations and formulae.

Keywords are an essential part of producing a journal article. When writing a journal article you must select keywords that you would like your article to rank for.

Keywords help potential readers to discover your article when conducting research using search engines.

The purpose of your abstract is to express the key points of your research, clearly and concisely. An abstract must always be well considered, as it is the primary element of your work that readers will come across.

An abstract should be a short paragraph (around 300 words) that summarizes the findings of your journal article. Ordinarily an abstract will be comprised of:

What your research is about

What methods have been used

What your main findings are

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements can appear to be a small aspect of your journal article, however it is still important. This is where you acknowledge the individuals who do not qualify for co-authorship, but contributed to your article intellectually, financially, or in some other manner.

When you acknowledge someone in your academic texts, it gives you more integrity as a writer as it shows that you are not claiming other academic’s ideas as your own intellectual property. It can also aid your readers in their own research journeys.

Introduction

An introduction is a pivotal part of the article writing process. An introduction not only introduces your topic and your stance on the topic, but it also (situates/contextualizes) your argument in the broader academic field.

The main body is where your main arguments and your evidence are located. Each paragraph will encapsulate a different notion and there will be clear linking between each paragraph.

Your conclusion should be an interpretation of your results, where you summarize all of the concepts that you introduced in the main body of the text in order of most to least important. No new concepts are to be introduced in this section.

References and citations

References and citations should be well balanced, current and relevant. Although every field is different, you should aim to cite references that are not more than 10 years old if possible. The studies you cite should be strongly related to your research question.

Clarity is key

Make your writing accessible by using clear language. Writing that is easy to read, is easier to understand too.

You may want to write for a global audience – to have your research reach the widest readership. Make sure you write in a way that will be understood by any reader regardless of their field or whether English is their first language.

Write your journal article with confidence, to give your reader certainty in your research. Make sure that you’ve described your methodology and approach; whilst it may seem obvious to you, it may not to your reader. And don’t forget to explain acronyms when they first appear.

Engage your audience. Go back to thinking about your audience; are they experts in your field who will easily follow technical language, or are they a lay audience who need the ideas presented in a simpler way?

Be aware of other literature in your field, and reference it

Make sure to tell your reader how your article relates to key work that’s already published. This doesn’t mean you have to review every piece of previous relevant literature, but show how you are building on previous work to avoid accidental plagiarism.

When you reference something, fully understand its relevance to your research so you can make it clear for your reader. Keep in mind that recent references highlight awareness of all the current developments in the literature that you are building on. This doesn’t mean you can’t include older references, just make sure it is clear why you’ve chosen to.

How old can my references be?

Your literature review should take into consideration the current state of the literature.

There is no specific timeline to consider. But note that your subject area may be a factor. Your colleagues may also be able to guide your decision.

Researcher’s view

Grasian Mkodzongi, Ruth First Prize Winner

Top tips to get you started

Communicate your unique point of view to stand out. You may be building on a concept already in existence, but you still need to have something new to say. Make sure you say it convincingly, and fully understand and reference what has gone before.

Editor’s view

Professor Len Barton, Founding Editor of Disability and Society

Be original

Now you know the features of a journal article and how to construct it. This video is an extra resource to use with this guide to help you know what to think about before you write your journal article.

Expert help for your manuscript

Taylor & Francis Editing Services offers a full range of pre-submission manuscript preparation services to help you improve the quality of your manuscript and submit with confidence.

Related resources

How to write your title and abstract

Journal manuscript layout guide

Improve the quality of English of your article

How to edit your paper

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View all journals

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Chemistry is a branch of science that involves the study of the composition, structure and properties of matter. Often known as the central science, it is a creative discipline chiefly concerned with atomic and molecular structure and its change, for instance through chemical reactions.

Future optoelectronics unlocked by ‘doping’ strategy

A family of semiconductors known as perovskites has great promise for use in optoelectronic devices. A much-needed strategy for adjusting the density of charge carriers in these materials unleashes their potential.

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Computationally guided design of a diazotransfer reagent with high reactivity

Sulfur( vi ) fluoride exchange and modular diazotransfer reactions have advanced click chemistry, but their mechanisms and reactivity profiles are not well understood. Now, a computational study of these reactions provides mechanistic insights and predictive reactivity models for modular diazotransfer, facilitating the development of an easy-to-prepare and -handle diazotransfer reagent with excellent reactivity.

Selective cross-hydrodimerization of alkenes

Enantioenriched alkyl–alkyl bonds are produced from abundant alkenes in one step via Ni-catalysed asymmetric cross-hydrodimerization. This technique overcomes the reactivity and selectivity challenges associated with coupling between two similar nucleophiles.

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Direct glycosylation analysis of intact monoclonal antibodies combining ESI MS of glycoforms and MALDI-in source decay MS of glycan fragments

Glycoengineering of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) has the potential to improve the efficacy of biopharmaceuticals, however, monitoring the glycoengineering process by glycosylation analysis often requires a multi-method approach. Here, the authors present a direct glycosylation analysis of intact mAbs by combining conventional ESI-MS of intact glycoforms and MALDI-in-source decay FT-ICR MS of glycan fragments.

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The top 10 journal articles

Vol. 53 No. 1 Print version: page 26

several college students sitting on bleachers

1. COVID-19 disruption on college students: Academic and socioemotional implications

Tasso, A. F., Hisli Sahin, N., San Roman, G. J.

This study in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy (Vol. 13, No. 1) reveals that college students experienced emotional distress on many levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers surveyed 257 students at a U.S. college who all participated in remote learning off campus during the spring of 2020 because of the pandemic. Students reported being afraid of contracting COVID-19 and even more afraid of people within their social network contracting the virus. They also reported worrying about themselves or loved ones becoming severely ill, academic-related distress following the transition to remote learning, and COVID-19-related mental health distress, including interpersonal disengagement, struggles with motivation, and boredom, as well as anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances. DOI: 10.1037/tra0000996

2. COVID-19 and the workplace: Implications, issues, and insights for future research and action

Kniffin, K. M., Narayanan, J., Anseel, F., Antonakis, J., Ashford, S. P., Bakker, A. B., Bamberger, P., Bapuji, H. Bhave, D. P., Choi, V. K., Creary, S. J., Demerouti, E., Flynn, F. J., Gelfand, M. J., Greer, L. L., Johns, G., Kesebir, S., Klein, P. G., Lee, S. Y., Ozcelik, H., Petriglieri, J. L., Rothbard, N. P., Rudolph, C. W., Shaw, J. D., Sirola, N., Wanberg, C. R., Whillans, A., Wilmot, M. P., Vugt, M.

This article in American Psychologist (Vol. 76, No. 1) presents possible workplace trends resulting from COVID-19, including remote work, virtual teamwork and management, social distancing, and unemployment. The analysis suggests that working from home will continue and expand post-pandemic. As for effects on workers, the authors predict increases in economic inequality, loneliness, stress, burnout, and addiction. Other workplace changes the authors forecast include virtual work arrangements that may foster more participatory relationships, new performance management and evaluation systems for remote workers, and new modes of surveillance by companies to check in on employees working remotely. DOI: 10.1037/amp0000716

3. A closer look at appearance and social media: Measuring activity, self-presentation, and social comparison and their associations with emotional adjustment

Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., Hawes, T., Pariz, J.

This Psychology of Popular Media (Vol. 10, No. 1) study presents a tool to assess youth’s preoccupation with their physical appearance on social media. Researchers administered a 21-item survey about social media to 281 Australian high school students. They identified 18 items with strong inter-item correlation centered on three categories of social media behavior: online self-presentation, appearance-related online activity, and appearance comparison. In a second study with 327 Australian university students, scores on the 18-item survey were found to be associated with measures of social anxiety and depressive symptoms, appearance-related support from others, general interpersonal stress, coping flexibility, sexual harassment, disordered eating, and other issues. The researchers also found that young women engaged in more appearance-related social media activity and appearance comparison than did young men. DOI: 10.1037/ppm0000277

4. When social isolation is nothing new: A longitudinal study on psychological distress during COVID-19 among university students with and without preexisting mental health concerns

Hamza, C. A., Ewing, L., Heath, N. L., Goldstein, A. L.

In this study in Canadian Psychology (Vol. 62, No. 1), researchers examined the psychological impacts of COVID-19 on the mental health of postsecondary students with and without preexisting mental health concerns prior to the pandemic. The researchers surveyed 773 college students in Canada in May 2019 and again in May 2020 about recent stressful experiences and their mental health status. They found that students with preexisting mental health concerns showed improving or similar mental health during the early pandemic compared with 1 year prior. By contrast, students without preexisting mental health concerns were more likely to exhibit declining mental health during the pandemic, perhaps because they had less experience with social isolation than did students with preexisting mental health issues, the researchers suggest. DOI: 10.1037/cap0000255

5. Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) for interpersonal trauma in transitional-aged youth

Peters, W., Rice, S., Cohen, J., Murray, L., Schley, C., Alvarez-Jimenez, M., Bendall, S.

This pilot study in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy (Vol. 13, No. 3) indicates that trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) is an effective treatment for young people who have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following interpersonal trauma such as child physical or sexual abuse, maltreatment, or neglect. Researchers delivered 15 TF-CBT sessions over 25 weeks to 20 youth ages 15 to 25 (transitional-aged) in Australia, 16 of whom had a PTSD diagnosis. They found that following treatment, 15 of 16 participants no longer met criteria for a PTSD diagnosis, and self-report measures of PTSD, depression, and anxiety showed improvement, though some participants reported transient increases in symptoms. The researchers plan to conduct a larger randomized clinical trial to examine the effectiveness of TF-CBT for PTSD and other frequently co-occurring symptoms, including anxiety, depression, and substance use. DOI: 10.1037/tra0001016

6. Social media use and friendship closeness in adolescents’ daily lives: An experience sampling study

Pouwels, J. L., Valkenburg, P. M., Beyens, I., van Driel, I. I., Keijsers, L.

Adolescents who use social media apps such as Instagram more frequently than their peers feel closer to their friends, suggests this study in Developmental Psychology (Vol. 57, No. 2). Researchers asked 387 adolescents ages 13 to 15 in the Netherlands to report six times per day for 3 weeks their Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat use in the previous hour, as well as their momentary experiences of friendship closeness. They found that participants who used WhatsApp and Instagram with close friends with whom they felt a sense of trust, support, and intimacy more frequently throughout the 3 weeks experienced higher levels of friendship closeness during the study than their peers. However, participants felt less close to their friends after they had used Instagram or WhatsApp in the previous hour, perhaps, the researchers suggest, resulting from unmet expectations that friends would immediately provide feedback on their posts. Neither association was found with Snapchat. DOI: 10.1037/dev0001148

7. Every (Insta)gram counts? Applying cultivation theory to explore the effects of Instagram on young users’ body image

Stein, J.-P., Krause, E., Ohler, P.

This study in Psychology of Popular Media (Vol. 10, No. 1) suggests that young people who frequently browse Instagram in a highly engaged way are more critical of strangers’ bodies and indulge more often in disordered eating—even if their own body image is unaffected. Researchers asked 228 participants ages 18 to 34 in Germany about changes in weight-related knowledge, attitudes, and self-reported dietary restraint. They found that participants, especially women, who browsed Instagram’s content more actively than their peers formed harsher views about the weight of strangers as well as an increased risk for disordered eating, but not a reduction in satisfaction with their own bodies. DOI: 10.1037/ppm0000268

8. Nonverbal overload: A theoretical argument for the causes of Zoom fatigue

Bailenson, J. N.

This review article in Technology, Mind, and Behavior (Vol. 2, No. 1) combines theory and prior research to derive four explanations for “Zoom fatigue,” the feeling of exhaustion brought on by video calls: excessive close-up eye contact with speakers, constant self-evaluation of one’s own image on the screen, remaining in a fixed position in view of the camera, and the increased cognitive load of sending and receiving nonverbal communication. The author offers the following solutions: reduce the size of the Zoom window to minimize face size, hide “self-view,” position the camera further away to allow for moving beyond a fixed sitting position without disrupting the call, and take “audio-only” breaks by both turning the camera off and turning away from the screen. DOI: 10.1037/tmb0000030

9. Coping during the COVID-19 pandemic: Relations with mental health and quality of life

Shamblaw, A. L., Rumas, R. L., Best, M. W.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people using avoidance coping strategies experienced increased depression and anxiety, while those using approach coping strategies, such as positive reframing, received the largest mental health boost, suggests this study in Canadian Psychology (Vol. 62, No. 1). In April 2020, researchers surveyed 797 online participants in the United States and Canada about 14 different approach or avoidance coping strategies as well as symptoms of depression, anxiety, and quality of life. One month later, 395 of the participants took the survey again. The researchers found that avoidance coping was associated with higher depression, higher anxiety, and lower quality of life at baseline and increased depression and anxiety 1 month later. Approach coping was associated with lower depression and better quality of life at baseline but not over the 1-month period. Of the specific coping strategies examined, reframing negative aspects of the pandemic was the most beneficial. DOI: 10.1037/cap0000263

10. Integrating responsive motivational interviewing with cognitive-behavioral therapy for generalized anxiety disorder: Direct and indirect effects on interpersonal outcomes

Muir, H. J., Constantino, M. J., Coyne, A. E., Westra, H. A., Antony, M. M.

This study in the Journal of Psychotherapy Integration (Vol. 31, No. 1) indicates that adding motivational interviewing (MI)—a psychotherapy module that helps people resolve feelings of ambivalence—to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) can bring about long-term changes in nonassertiveness and overaccommodation. In other words, the combination treatment helps people better assert themselves and not give in to others’ demands. Researchers randomly assigned 85 Canadian patients with GAD to a brief treatment of CBT or MI-CBT. Patients completed measures of nonassertiveness and overaccommodation throughout the treatment and across a 12-month follow-up. The researchers found that both MI-CBT and CBT reduced nonassertiveness and overaccommodation, but at 12 months, MI-CBT had helped patients more than CBT alone. This effect was explained by MI-CBT therapists’ ability to help patients overcome midtreatment resistance. DOI: 10.1037/int0000194

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The past and present of thought experiments’ research at Glancy: bibliometric review and analysis

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Published: 07 September 2024
Volume 3 , article number 142 , ( 2024 )

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Hartono Bancong 1

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In the development of physical theories, thought experiments play a crucial role. Research on this topic began in 1976 and has continued to the present. This study aims to provide a more complete picture of the progress of thought experiments over the past two decades. To achieve this, this study employs bibliometric mapping methods. A total of 679 published papers were analyzed, including articles (504), conference papers (92), and book chapters (83). This data was retrieved from the Scopus database. The study's findings reveal that research and publications on thought experiments are highly valued and have received significant attention over the past eight years. According to the findings, 90% of the top 20 source titles contributing to thought experiments are from journals in the first and second quartiles (Q1 and Q2). This quartile ranking shows the quality and significant influence of a journal. The geographical distribution indicates that the United States contributes the most to thought experiments research, with 213 documents, 2592 citations, and 47 links. We also identified several prospective keywords that could be the focus of future research, including artificial intelligence, physics education, fiction, God, theology, productive imagination, technology, speculative design, and critical design. Therefore, this study provides a thorough picture of thought experiment research trends and future directions of potential topics that can be the focus of future researchers.

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1 Introduction

Thought experiments (TEs) have a long history in science. Since Ernst Mach, the term TEs, a direct translation of the phrase Gedankenexperimente , has been widely discussed in the philosophy of science [ 18 ]. Thought and experiments are two components of TEs [ 4 , 18 , 29 ]. The thought element involves visualizing an imaginary world based on theory and experience, whereas the experimental aspect entails practical tasks in a physical laboratory, such as manipulating items and related variables. While some authors consider TEs to be mere arguments [ 24 ], others believe TEs are a form of fiction since their function is comparable to literary fiction in that both have a narrative framework by creating scenarios of occurrences from beginning to end [ 13 , 22 ]. However, unlike fiction, which frequently provides contradictory discourses, we believe that TEs should be logically and conceptually cohesive. TEs are structured imaginative actions based on the theory and experience of thought experimenters to achieve certain goals.

The contributions of TEs to the growth of scientific theories, particularly in physics, are essential. Physicists have employed TEs several times throughout history to either come up with new hypotheses or disprove previous ones. As the most representative examples, Newton used the TEs of cannonballs to support his hypothesis that the force of gravity is universal and the principal force of planetary motion, or Galileo used the TEs of free-falling bodies to disprove Aristotle's theory of gravity, which stated that the speed of falling objects is proportional to their weight. Galileo’s falling body, Newton's bucket and cannon, Maxwell's demon, and Schrodinger’s cat are just a few of the well-known TEs in physics [ 4 ]. These are only a few examples of the significant role TEs played in the development of scientific theories.

In the past 10 years, several works have studied TEs from the perspectives of history and philosophy of science [ 7 , 8 , 10 , 30 , 33 ]. Because most existing historical work on TEs focuses on individual TEs or individual accounts of TEs, reassessing the history of the philosophical debate on TEs becomes essential [ 33 ]. In the philosophy of science, historical debates regarding interactions between various philosophers or philosophical explanations across time in developed TEs are sometimes disregarded. Several studies have also used TEs as an imaginative tool in the classroom to teach science subjects. Velentzas and Halkia [ 37 ], for example, used TEs from Newton's Cannon to teach satellite physics. They then assert that TEs, as a teaching tool, can assist students in strengthening their syllogistic abilities and help them conceive scenarios beyond their everyday experience [ 37 ]. El Skaf and Palacios [ 12 ] have also systematically analyzed the epistemic role of TEs from Wheeler's demon and Geroch's engine, which gave rise to black hole thermodynamics. Recently, Bancong et al. [ 2 ] reported that physics teachers in Indonesia have a high awareness of the importance of TEs in learning physics, especially atomic theory and relativity, even though they lack skills in the pedagogic aspects of TEs. Therefore, Indonesian physics teachers also suggest using technology such as virtual reality to help visualize an imaginary world when performing TEs.

Although a number of studies on TEs from various perspectives have been conducted, no study has yet completely examined this field to look at the trend of this topic in recent years. Therefore, it becomes essential to conduct a bibliometric study of TEs over time based on authoritative databases like Scopus. Because of Scopus's comprehensive coverage of scholarly articles in the field of education [ 23 , 27 , 34 ], it was chosen as the database for this study. Scopus is also a popular resource for bibliometric research [ 23 , 28 ]. For this reason, we use data sources from the Scopus database to carry out the bibliometric method. Our study covers journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters from the last 20 years to provide a more complete view.

To highlight the significance of TEs research, we compare its growth to other scientific topics. While many scientific fields have seen growth over the past two decades, TEs research has also shown a unique and sustained increase in interest and publications. This trend contrasts sharply with the decline in research focus on traditional physics experiments [ 41 ]. Similarly, other topics in physics education, such as methodological issues, textbook analysis, and pre-service physics teachers, are also experiencing reduced research interest [ 25 ]. Additionally, the integration of TEs with emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, underscores their evolving relevance and potential for future research [ 21 ].

Therefore, this study aims to provide an up-to-date overview of trends in TEs research. The research questions in this study are as follows:

How is the growth of research output on the topic of TEs over the last 20 years?

Which source titles have contributed the most to the publication of papers on TEs in the last 20 years?

Who are the most prominent authors on the topic of TEs in the last 20 years?

Which countries have published the most articles on TEs over the past 20 years?

What are the most relevant keywords that can be found in the studies of TEs over the last 20 years?

2.1 Research design

This study aims to analyze the trends in TEs research over the past 20 years by using a bibliometric mapping method. To ensure a thorough analysis of recent trends and developments, this study focused on studies published between 2003 and 2022. This period was chosen because of significant advancements in research methodologies and bibliometric analysis tools in the early 2000s, as well as the consistent growth and comprehensive coverage of the Scopus database since that time. Bibliometric analysis is a well-known statistical method for examining and analyzing a large amount of scientific data on a certain topic [ 26 , 39 ]. Metrics studied in bibliometric research include annual publications, source titles, authors, institutions, nations, and keywords, covering data from primary, secondary, and tertiary journals over a specific time period. It should be noted that no ethical approval was required for this study as it did not involve humans or animals.

2.2 Data collection

In this study, data were gathered from the Scopus database ( https://www.scopus.com ). Scopus was chosen because it covers a wider range of documents than any other scientific database [ 23 , 28 , 35 ]. Scopus is the world's largest abstracting and indexing database, with 84 million records containing over 18.0 million open access items, including gold, hybrid gold, green, and bronze, as well as 10.9 million conference papers, 25.8 thousand active peer-reviewed journals, and over 7000 publishers [ 14 ]. In addition, Scopus covers a wider range of educational disciplines than other databases, such as the Web of Science (WoS) [ 23 , 27 , 34 ]. As a result, using the Scopus database enables researchers to shed light on areas that may not be covered in WoS.

Electronic data search and retrieval were conducted on February 25, 2023. Keyword search was set to include title, abstract, and keywords. The keyword search was set to include the title, abstract, and keywords. The combination of search strings, operators, and filters used in this study was TITLE-ABS-KEY ("Thought-experiments" AND "Science" OR "Physics"). Quotation marks were used to focus on documents containing this exact phrase, thus ensuring high relevance to the study's scope. The Scopus database retrieved 898 documents related to these keywords with full bibliographical information, including articles (67.04%), paper proceedings (10.13%), book chapters (10.02%), and other types of documents (12.81%). By using the Scopus filter, other types of publications (12.81%), including review articles, were excluded from the list of documents. The exclusion of review articles was intentional to focus on original research contributions that advance the field of TEs directly. Including reviews could confound the analysis as they often summarize existing research rather than introduce new findings. Therefore, concentrating on the three most prevalent types of documents—articles, conference papers, and book chapters—allowed for a clearer interpretation of trends and patterns in original research outputs over the specified period. Additionally, we limited the year of publication to studies published within the last 20 years (2003–2022) to ensure the relevance and currency of our analysis. After using a filtering process to eliminate papers that did not meet the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 679 articles were identified for bibliometric analysis. These articles included 504 articles, 92 book chapters, and 83 conference papers.

2.3 Data analysis

The data analysis process began with acquiring the necessary raw data by downloading it from the Scopus database in either comma-separated value (CSV) or research information system (RIS) format. For data analysis and visualization, we used VOSviewer and Microsoft Excel. VOSviewer, a sophisticated mapping tool, was employed to create collaborative networks for various variables and keywords, while Microsoft Excel was used for descriptive analysis, such as determining the number of articles published each year and identifying the most prolific source titles.

The network graphs in this study were generated using VOSviewer, based on co-authorship, co-occurrence, and citation data from Scopus. The analysis type focused on the co-occurrence of keywords and co-authorship, with a full counting method. Keywords with a minimum of four occurrences were included. The visualization settings in VOSviewer were mainly default, with the attraction parameter set to 2 and the repulsion parameter set to 0. These settings ensured that the most relevant and frequently occurring terms were highlighted, providing a clear overview of research trends and collaborations in the field of TEs over the past 20 years.

In this study, we explored the most productive publishers, the most referenced articles, the most productive authors, the most productive nations, and author keyword occurrences across time. An analysis of co-authorship and co-occurrence was performed at this stage. The analysis of co-authorship provides insights into the interactions between authors. This methodology was also used for metrics related to countries. For country attribution, we included all the countries of all authors involved in each publication, not just the corresponding author. This method ensures that all co-authors' contributions are acknowledged and provides a comprehensive representation of the global distribution of research. Co-occurrence analysis was employed as a means of investigating current keywords and their interrelationships with other phrases associated with TEs. Within this particular framework, the term “node size” refers to the frequency at which a certain keyword appears in comparison to other words. Additionally, interconnected nodes are visually represented by lines known as connections. The link establishes a connection between two nodes, while the width of the link signifies the intensity or potency of the connection between the aforementioned nodes [ 36 , 39 ].

In the context of network map visualization, nodes that exhibit a high degree of association are categorized into clusters. The clustering of items was performed using the Louvain algorithm, a popular method for community detection in large networks due to its efficiency and accuracy in handling large datasets [ 36 , 39 ]. This algorithm was chosen for its ability to uncover modular structures within large networks, which is particularly useful for identifying distinct research themes and collaboration groups in bibliometric data. Subsequently, a distinct color code was assigned to each cluster, wherein nodes within the same cluster exhibit a high degree of homogeneity. Therefore, this bibliometric mapping approach enabled researchers to discern patterns and emerging areas of interest throughout the timeframe spanning from 2003 to 2022. Figure 1 shows the stages in the process of collecting and analyzing data in this study.

The steps in collecting and analyzing the data

3.1 Statistics analysis

In this analysis, we use statistical data to observe differences in the number of articles published each year. The goal is to determine whether the quantity of publications on the topic of TEs has increased or decreased annually. Figure 2 illustrates the number of papers published over the last 20 years (2003–2022). As we can see, there has been an increase in the interest and attention of researchers, scholars, and experts in researching TEs. The growth started in 2004 and continued until 2006. The number of papers published then fluctuated between 2006 and 2015. The increase started again in 2015 and continued until 2021. The number of publications increased significantly in 2021, with 69 articles published. This growth demonstrates that research and publications on TEs are in high demand and have garnered significant attention globally in the last eight years despite a reduction in 2022. Although studies in this area are still ongoing, these findings indicate an annual growth in the writing and publication of TEs on Scopus.

Number of articles published each year

Statistical data are also used to see the number of source titles that have made the greatest contributions to TEs during the last 20 years. A total of 679 papers have been published from various sources with different types of documents in the form of articles (504), conference papers (92), and book chapters (83). According to statistical data in the Scopus database, publication in journals is very significant in publishing research on the topic of TEs, while publication in proceedings and book chapters with the main scope of TEs is not very significant. Therefore, researchers, academics, and experts are advised to submit their articles focused on TEs to journals rather than proceedings and chapter books. Table 1 lists the top 20 sources of scientific research publications covering the topic of TEs from 2003 to 2022.

As seen in Table 1 , 90% of the source titles contributing to the TEs topic are journals, with only one publishing conference proceedings. Philosophical studies ranks first, with 17 documents published in the last 20 years. This is followed by the AIP Conference Proceedings with 15 documents. The American Journal of Physics, Science and Education, and Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A have published 11 documents each. Other source titles, such as Synthese (10), Foundations of Science (9), Physics Teacher (9), Journal for General Philosophy of Science (8), and Philosophy of Science (8), also contributed to publishing TEs topics. Minds and Machines and Physics Education each published seven documents. Erkenntnis, European Journal of Physics, Physics Essays, and Religions each published six documents, Acta Analytica published five documents, while Axiomathes, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of and History of Science, and European Journal for Philosophy of Science each published four documents.

3.2 Bibliometric analysis

3.2.1 contributions of authors.

Table 2 shows the 10 most prolific authors based on the total number of published articles from 2003 to 2022. As shown in this list, Stuart is the most significant author with 7 papers (51 citations), followed by Bancong from Universitas Muhammadiyah Makassar, Indonesia, with 5 papers (15 citations). Following Bancong, Fehige from the University of Toronto, Canada, has also published 5 articles. The majority of Fehige’s research focuses on TEs in the context of religion. In contrast to Fehige, Brown, also from the University of Toronto in Canada, has studied TEs through the lens of history and philosophy of science in several of his works (4 documents, 52 citations). Similarly, Buzzoni (3 documents, 15 citations) and El Skaf (3 documents, 29 citations) from Italy, discuss TEs from historical and philosophical perspectives of science. Meanwhile, Halkia and Velentzas from the University of Athens, Greece, have analyzed TEs thoroughly from an educational standpoint, with the number of documents being 4 and 86 citations.

3.2.2 Contributions of country

In the context of the leading countries, authors from 64 different countries/territories published a total of 679 documents. Table 3 lists the top 20 countries in terms of TE contributions based on the number of papers published. As shown, the United States contributes the most to TEs research, with 213 documents, 2592 citations, and 47 links. The number of papers is about three times that of the United Kingdom, which comes second (75 documents, 1016 citations, and 31 links). European countries continue to hold third to sixth place, with Germany publishing 50 documents with 634 citations, followed by Canada (43 documents, 410 citations, and 17 links), Italy (33 documents, 96 citations, 6 links), and the Netherlands (28 documents, 342 citations, and 12 links). This suggests that countries in America and Europe contribute the most to TEs. The Asian country that has contributed the most to TEs is China, with 18 documents, 286 citations, and 11 links, followed by India (14 documents), Japan (12 documents), and South Korea (12 documents), with 97, 111, and 27 citations, respectively. The three countries below these are European countries, with Austria having issued 10 documents related to TEs with a total of 135 citations, followed by Finland (9 documents, 31 citations) and Spain (9 documents, 47 citations).

3.2.3 Keywords

The results of a keyword analysis can be used in further investigation of the topic at hand. This study employs a minimum threshold of two occurrences of keywords in all research articles that were examined using VOSviewer. Figure 3 displays the 253 authors' keywords detected from 1990, which may be categorized into six distinct clusters. Cluster 1 is characterized by a red color, Cluster 2 by a green color, while Cluster 3 is distinguished by a blue color. In addition, Cluster 4 is characterized by a yellow color, Cluster 5 has a purple hue, and Cluster 6 is distinguished by a light blue shade. Each cluster is comprised of interconnected keywords that are visually represented by the same colors. It is important to note that the size and shape of the node are indicative of the frequency of its occurrences [ 36 , 39 ]. In other words, there is a positive correlation between the size of the node and the frequency of occurrences of these terms. Clustering is employed as a means to gain insights or a comprehensive understanding of bibliometric groupings, whereas image mapping serves the purpose of obtaining a holistic depiction of a bibliometric network.

Network visualization of TEs

Figure 3 shows Cluster 1 (red) with 68 items such as thought experiments, intuition, Science, Kant, Aristotle, Galileo, Platonism, personal identity, theology, fiction narrative, moral motivation, and neuroscience. Cluster 2 (green) consists of 57 categories, such as science fiction, philosophy of science, philosophy of physics, philosophical thought, epistemology, knowledge, scientific reasoning, experiments, models, and realism. Cluster 3 (blue) contains 41 items, such as consciousness, Maxwell's demon, Schrodinger's cat, quantum theory, entropy, uncertainty principle, quantum entanglement, quantum information, quantum physics, and Newton's bucket. Furthermore, cluster 4 (yellow) consists of 30 items: physics education, science education, visualization, special theory of relativity, history of physics, problem-solving, exploration, Einstein, relativity, and falsification. Cluster 5 (purple) consists of 29 items: imagination, ontology, physics, truth time, algorithm of discovery, artificial intelligence, ethics, nanotechnology, fiction, philosophy, and technology. Finally, cluster 6 (light blue) contains 16 categories, including popular science, fictionality, narrative, construction, sensation, a priori, story, Mach, memory, productive imagination, and schema.

Keywords in clusters 1 and 2 have a high number of occurrences and a high total link strength. The term thought experiment ranks first with 85 occurrences and a total link strength of 91. This is followed by the term thought experiment with 60 occurrences, a total link strength of 98, and several other keywords. The high number of occurrences and high total link strength indicate that scientific research publications on the topic of TEs in the 2003–2022 range indexed by Scopus have a strong and direct relationship with these keywords. Table 4 displays the ten keywords with the highest occurrence and overall link strength in the last 20 years on the topic of TEs.

VOSviewer, on the other hand, is also used to visualize the progress of keywords over a certain period. Figure 4 illustrates the overlay visualization of the TEs topic in the time range 2003 to 2022.

Overlay visualization of TEs

Figure 4 depicts the annual distribution of the number of articles containing keywords. The various colors represent the publication dates of the related papers where these keywords appear together. The data in Fig. 4 indicate that the most frequently used topics related to TEs from 2010 to 2014 were quantum theory, ethical naturalism, ethical naturalism, quantum mechanics, scientific discovery, and mental models. Then, from 2014 to 2018, keywords such as scientific reasoning, intuition, science education, computer simulation, history of science, and science fiction began to appear in the TEs topic. The hottest topics in TEs research are shown in yellow color, including fiction, artificial intelligence, God, theology, speculative design, critical design, and methods of case. These findings indicate that these keywords have gained popularity in recent years. It can be concluded that scholars have increasingly turned to research on the mentioned topics in recent years.

4 Discussion

The goal of this study is to use the bibliometric mapping method to examine the trend of studies on TEs during the last 20 years (2003–2022). According to the findings of the study, there has been an increase in the interest and attention of researchers, scholars, and professionals in studying TEs. Although research in this area is ongoing, these findings indicate an annual growth in the writing and publication of TEs on Scopus. This growth demonstrates that research and publications on TEs are in high demand and receive significant global attention.

Interestingly, 90% of the top 20 source titles contributing to TEs research are journals in the first quartile (Q1) and second quartile (Q2). Among these, 10 journals are in the highest quartile, Q1, and 8 journals are in Q2. The quartile level indicates that these journals have the highest quality and the greatest influence [ 39 , 40 ]. Furthermore, 7 source titles (Philosophical Studies, Synthese, Foundations of Science, Minds and Machines, Erkenntnis, Acta Analytica, and Axiomathes) that publish TEs topics focus on the field of philosophy. When studying TEs from a philosophical standpoint, researchers, scholars, and professionals have the option of submitting their articles to these journals. Alternatively, if TEs are studied from a historical perspective, journals such as Science and Education, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, Journal for General Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Science, Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, and European Journal for Philosophy of Science are appropriate. Meanwhile, if TEs are studied from an educational perspective, Physics Teacher, Science and Education, Physics Education, American Journal of Physics, and European Journal of Physics are ideal choices for publishing articles. These journals regularly publish articles in physics education studies.

If we look at the authors who have made the greatest contributions to the topic of TEs in the previous 20 years (2003–2022), Stuart is the most significant author with 7 articles (51 citations). Stuart’s work focuses on the history and philosophy of TEs [ 31 , 32 , 33 ], with the first publication in 2014 in the journal Perspectives of Science. In contrast to Stuart, Bancong's work, which ranks second, investigates various TEs from an educational standpoint. His first work, published in 2018, examined TEs in high school physics textbooks [ 3 ], followed by an investigation of how students construct TEs collaboratively [ 4 ], and an identification of factors influencing TEs during problem-solving activities [ 5 ]. Following Bancong, Fehige from the University of Toronto, Canada, has also published 5 articles. Most of his work examines TEs in religious contexts, such as thought experiments, Christianity and science in novalis [ 15 ], thought experiments and theology [ 16 ], and the book of job as a thought experiment: on science, religion, and literature [ 17 ] which was published in the journal Religions in 2019. Brown examines TEs in several of his works in light of the history and philosophy of science [ 6 , 7 ], as do Buzzoni and El Skaf from Italy, who mostly discuss TEs in light of the history and philosophy of science [ 8 , 12 ]. Meanwhile, Halkia and Velentzas from the University of Athens, Greece, have discussed TEs from an educational perspective, such as using TEs from Newton's Cannon for teaching satellite physics [ 37 ] and using TEs from the theory of relativity for teaching relativity theories [ 38 ].

Over the past two decades, authors have examined TEs from diverse perspectives, including history, philosophy, education, and religion. This variety highlights a significant shift in the disciplinary landscape of TE research, which is historically rooted in the philosophy of science [ 18 , 24 ]. The true strength of TEs lies in their adaptability across disciplines, rather than in resolving philosophical disputes. Although TEs were traditionally centered on history and philosophy of science (HPS), recent trends show a growing application in education and technology, particularly in artificial intelligence and speculative design. This shift indicates that TEs have not lost their significance but have instead found new areas of relevance. In HPS, the focus has moved toward understanding the methodological and epistemological implications of TEs, confirming their essential role in scientific reasoning [ 7 , 30 ]. Additionally, in fields such as physics education, TEs are increasingly utilized to explore complex theoretical concepts and enhance educational methodologies [ 2 , 12 ].

Based on the most commonly used keywords in the last 20 years, research on TEs has mostly focused on understanding TEs from a philosophical perspective in the first five years (2003–2007). Thought experiments rethought and reperceived [ 19 ], on thought experiments: is there more to the argument? [ 24 ] and thought experiments [ 9 ] are a few examples. Then, over the next five years (2008–2012), many studies looked at how TEs contributed to physical theories, including the special theory of relativity and quantum theory. The keywords that emerged frequently during this period were quantum theory, scientific discovery, methodology, quantum mechanics, twin earths, falling bodies, and others. In the last ten years, TEs have been studied from various perspectives. For example, in 2013, Velentzas and Halkia [ 38 ] also used TEs as a didactic tool in teaching physics to upper-secondary students. Fehige, on the other hand, began to connect TEs to theology, with a specific focus on the interaction between Christianity and science [ 15 , 16 ]. There are also researchers who continue to study the existence of TEs from a philosophical point of view and claim that TEs are science fiction [ 1 , 20 ]. In recent years, TEs have become increasingly popular in education and have been linked to artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence, physics education, productive imagination, technology, and speculative design are some of the keywords that appear frequently. This is not surprising because TEs, as experimental activities using mental models, are not easy for students to perform on their own [ 4 , 5 ]. Therefore, technology that can assist students in creating an imaginative world for constructing TEs is required.

Since no studies have charted the trends in TEs research so far, it is difficult to compare the research results obtained with those of others. Nevertheless, several studies that examine trends in physics education reveal that although research on experiments is declining in physics education, TEs are still important to physics teaching and learning [ 41 ]. Hallswoth et al. [ 21 ] have also used artificial intelligence technologies to support TEs in the field of wet biology research, which is dominated by experiments on microbial growth and survival. The use of artificial intelligence in learning is based on the growing interest in artificial intelligence methods in science, technology, and education [ 11 ]. Overall, our study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of TEs research trends during the last 20 years. In addition, this research also contributes to providing an overview of several potential topics that can be the focus of future researchers, such as the use of artificial intelligence in TEs. By situating our findings within the broader context of previous studies, we provide a clearer picture of how TE research has evolved and where it is heading.

5 Conclusions

This study aims to present a more comprehensive understanding of the trend of studies on TEs during the last 20 years (2003–2022). Research on this topic began in 1976, and its progress has continued to the present. A total of 679 published papers from various sources, including articles (504), conference papers (92), and book chapters (83), were analyzed. The results of the study show that research and publications on TEs are of interest and have received a lot of attention during the last eight years. A significant increase occurred in 2021, with 69 published articles. According to the findings, 95% of the top 20 source titles contributing to TEs are from journals in the first and second quartiles (Q1 and Q2). This quartile ranking shows the quality and significant influence of a journal. The geographical distribution reveals that the United States contributes the most to TEs research, with 213 documents, 2592 citations, and 47 links. We also identified several prospective keywords that could be the focus of future research, including artificial intelligence, physics education, fiction, God, theology, productive imagination, technology, speculative design, and critical design. Therefore, this study contributes to providing a thorough picture of thought experiment research trends and future directions of potential topics that can be the focus of future researchers.

This research has several limitations. The exclusive source of publication data utilized in this study is the Scopus database, which is recognized as one of the most extensive databases in the field. However, it is worth noting that future research endeavors may consider including publication data from other prominent sources such as WoS and Google Scholar. Furthermore, the utilization of the search function in the TITLE-ABS-KEY field, specifically employing the terms "Thought-experiments" AND "Science" OR "Physics," was used for the purpose of data retrieval. However, it is important to acknowledge that this approach is not infallible, as there is a potential for some papers to be overlooked, making the process less than completely accurate. Despite its limitations, this research is often regarded as a pioneering contribution to the field of bibliometric studies on the subject of TEs during the past two decades.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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AP Research Topics: History, Chemistry, Psychology & More

Have you ever found yourself so wrapped up in a project that you forget to check the time? That's what happens when you choose the right AP Research topic. Whether you're curious about how technology shapes our lives or fascinated by the ways people think, picking good AP research paper topics can make your experience more than just another assignment—it can be an adventure.

AP Research is a course that lets high school students dig deep into a subject they care about. It gives you a chance to think critically and create something truly your own. But before you get started, you need to choose a topic that not only sparks your interest but also meets the course requirements. That's where we're here to help.

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The List of AP Research Topics

Now that you know what this research is all about, it's time to find a topic that speaks to you. Having a good list of ideas can also make the process easier. Below, our expert admission essay services team gathered a selection of AP research paper topics that are not only interesting but also offer plenty of opportunities for deep exploration.

Best AP Research Topics

How do urban heat islands affect local weather patterns and public health?
The impact of early childhood education on long-term social and emotional development
What are the effects of climate change on global water resources and availability?
How do social movements utilize digital platforms to mobilize support and influence policy?
The role of genetic engineering in agriculture: benefits and ethical concerns
How do cultural differences influence the effectiveness of mental health interventions?
The effects of gamified learning on student engagement and retention in STEM subjects
How does the rise of remote work affect team dynamics and productivity?
The influence of historical narratives on modern national identities
What are the psychological and social impacts of long-term space travel on astronauts?
The role of artificial intelligence in personalized medicine and its potential for transforming healthcare
How do different teaching methods impact students with learning disabilities?
The impact of environmental sustainability practices on corporate social responsibility
What are the effects of food labeling on consumer behavior and dietary choices?
How do societal attitudes toward aging affect elderly care and policies?
The role of traditional knowledge in contemporary environmental conservation efforts
How do different approaches to urban design influence community well-being and social interaction?
The impact of digital detox practices on mental health and productivity in the workplace
What can be learned from studying the long-term effects of major historical pandemics on societies?
How do contemporary art movements challenge traditional notions of aesthetics and value?

Good AP Research Topics

Here are some more good topic choices curated by EssayPro. If you've found one you love, our experts are ready to offer help with writing an essay .

How does the design of public spaces impact community engagement and safety?
The influence of storytelling techniques on public awareness of social issues
What are the effects of dietary changes on cognitive function in older adults?
How do global supply chain disruptions affect local economies and businesses?
The impact of bilingual education on cognitive development and academic performance
How does exposure to different cultural perspectives shape attitudes toward global issues?
What are the psychological effects of participating in extreme sports or adventure activities?
How do social and economic factors influence access to clean drinking water in developing countries?
The role of artificial intelligence in detecting and preventing cyber threats
How do virtual communities influence real-world social interactions and relationships?
The impact of renewable energy adoption on rural versus urban areas
What are the effects of early intervention programs on children with developmental delays?
How do different types of exercise affect mental health and stress levels?
The influence of political satire on public opinion and political engagement
What can be learned from the success and failure of international environmental agreements?
How do personal finance education programs impact financial decision-making and stability?
The effects of digital media consumption on attention spans and learning abilities in adolescents
How does the portrayal of diversity in media affect societal attitudes and inclusion?
The role of community gardens in promoting local food security and social cohesion
What are the benefits and challenges of integrating technology into traditional classroom settings?

AP Seminar Topics

These AP Seminar research topics are sure to inspire and engage you. They're practical and interesting, perfect for exploring important issues.

How has the rise of influencer culture altered consumer trust in advertising?
The impact of urban farming initiatives on food security in densely populated cities
What role do emerging technologies play in the future of remote education?
How does the portrayal of mental health in media affect public perceptions and stigma?
The influence of digital privacy concerns on the development of new technologies
How do alternative justice systems, like restorative justice, impact community rehabilitation?
The effects of gamification on student motivation and learning outcomes in education
What can the evolution of language in internet memes tell us about cultural shifts?
How do local art movements contribute to global conversations on social justice?
The role of wearable technology in personal health monitoring and its implications for privacy
How does the concept of 'ethical fashion' challenge traditional fashion industry practices?
What are the psychological effects of participating in online communities versus physical communities?
The influence of microdosing psychedelics on creativity and productivity in professional settings
How do fictional narratives in popular media shape our understanding of historical events?
The impact of virtual reality therapy on treating phobias and PTSD
What role does citizen science play in advancing environmental research and policy?
How do different cultures approach the concept of work-life balance, and what can we learn from them?
The effects of digital art on the traditional art market and artist recognition
How does the rise of autonomous vehicles impact urban planning and traffic management?
The role of narrative in shaping public perceptions of scientific research and technology

AP World History Research Paper Topics

How did the Silk Road influence cultural exchange between Asia and Europe?
The impact of the Mongol Empire on global trade and communication
The role of women in ancient Egyptian society
What led to the fall of the Roman Empire?
Exploring the causes and effects of the Protestant Reformation
The significance of the Magna Carta in shaping modern democracy
How did the Black Death reshape European societies in the 14th century?
The rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire
What were the key factors in the success of the Ottoman Empire?
The influence of Confucianism on Chinese government and society
How did the Age of Exploration change global economies and cultures?
The impact of colonialism on Indigenous populations in the Americas
What were the causes and consequences of the French Revolution?
The development and spread of Islam during the Middle Ages
How did the Industrial Revolution transform societies in Europe and beyond?
The influence of Greek philosophy on Western thought
What were the driving forces behind the unification of Germany?
The role of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in shaping the modern world
How did World War I lead to major political changes in Europe?
The cultural and technological achievements of the Gupta Empire in India

AP US History Research Paper Topics

The causes and effects of the American Revolution
How did the Louisiana Purchase shape the future of the United States?
The role of women in the American Civil War
What were the main challenges faced by the early colonies in America?
The impact of the Emancipation Proclamation on the Civil War
How did the Gold Rush influence westward expansion in the United States?
The significance of the Monroe Doctrine in American foreign policy
What were the key factors leading to the Great Depression?
The influence of the Harlem Renaissance on American culture
How did the Civil Rights Movement change American society?
The causes and consequences of the Mexican-American War
What role did the New Deal play in America's recovery from the Great Depression?
The impact of World War II on American domestic life
How did the Cold War shape US foreign and domestic policies?
The significance of the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education
What were the driving forces behind the Women's Suffrage Movement?
The effects of the Vietnam War on American society and politics
How did the Watergate scandal change public trust in government?
The influence of the Industrial Revolution on urbanization in America
What were the causes and outcomes of the American involvement in World War I?

AP Lang Research Paper Topics

How does the use of rhetorical questions in speeches influence audience engagement?
The role of persuasive language in shaping public opinion during elections
How does the choice of narrative perspective affect a reader's connection to a story?
The impact of social media on modern journalism and news reporting
What are the linguistic techniques used in effective political debates?
How do advertising slogans use language to create brand identity and consumer loyalty?
The influence of Shakespeare's use of imagery on modern literary analysis
How does the use of irony in literature enhance thematic elements?
The role of dialogue in character development in contemporary novels
How does language in public health campaigns affect community behavior and awareness?
What are the rhetorical strategies used in motivational speeches to inspire action?
The impact of tone and mood in setting the atmosphere in Gothic literature
How do different genres of writing, such as satire and tragedy, affect reader perception?
The role of metaphor in political rhetoric and its impact on policy discussions
How does the structure of an argumentative essay influence its persuasiveness?
The effects of language simplification in educational materials on student comprehension
How do authors use symbolism to convey deeper meanings in their works?
The influence of cultural context on the interpretation of literary texts
What are the effects of direct vs. indirect speech on character relationships in drama?
How do historical speeches reflect the values and concerns of their time periods?

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AP Environmental Science Research Paper Topics

The impact of deforestation on global biodiversity
How does climate change affect polar ice caps and sea levels?
The role of renewable energy in reducing carbon emissions
What are the environmental consequences of plastic pollution in oceans?
The effects of industrial agriculture on soil health
How does urbanization contribute to habitat loss and species extinction?
The importance of wetlands in maintaining ecological balance
What are the challenges and benefits of sustainable farming practices?
The role of environmental policies in protecting endangered species
How does air pollution impact human health in urban areas?
The significance of the ozone layer in protecting life on Earth
What are the environmental impacts of fracking on water resources?
The effects of climate change on coral reef ecosystems
How does deforestation contribute to climate change?
The importance of conservation efforts in preserving biodiversity
What are the environmental benefits and challenges of electric vehicles?
The role of national parks in protecting natural resources
How do invasive species disrupt local ecosystems?
The impact of overfishing on marine life and ocean health
What are the environmental and social implications of e-waste?

AP Chemistry Research Paper Topics

The process of photosynthesis and its chemical significance
What are the effects of heavy metals on human health?
The chemistry behind pharmaceuticals and drug development
How do detergents and soaps work at the molecular level?
The significance of oxidation-reduction reactions in energy production
What are the chemical principles behind climate change mitigation efforts?
The role of catalysts in speeding up chemical reactions
How do acids and bases interact in everyday life?
The importance of the periodic table in modern chemistry
What are the environmental impacts of chemical fertilizers?
The chemistry behind renewable energy sources like solar cells
How do chemical bonds determine the properties of substances?
The significance of pH in maintaining biological systems
What are the applications of nanotechnology in medicine?
The process and importance of water purification techniques
How do greenhouse gases contribute to global warming?
The role of chemical reactions in food preservation
What makes enzymes so crucial in biochemical reactions?
The chemistry of batteries and how they store energy
How do polymers impact everyday products and the environment?

AP Biology Research Topics

How do genetic mutations contribute to evolution?
The role of enzymes in cellular processes
What are the effects of climate change on animal migration patterns?
The significance of the human microbiome in health and disease
How do plants adapt to extreme environmental conditions?
The impact of antibiotic resistance on public health
What are the mechanisms of gene expression and regulation?
The role of natural selection in shaping species diversity
How do hormones regulate growth and development in organisms?
The process of photosynthesis and its importance in the carbon cycle
What are the effects of habitat destruction on biodiversity?
The role of the immune system in defending against pathogens
How do organisms maintain homeostasis in varying environments?
The impact of invasive species on native ecosystems
What are the genetic factors involved in inherited diseases?
The process of cell division and its significance in growth and reproduction
How do environmental toxins affect the nervous system?
The role of symbiotic relationships in ecosystems
What are the effects of pollution on aquatic life?
The significance of epigenetics in gene expression and inheritance

AP Research Psychology Topics

How do different parenting styles impact child development?
The effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance
What are the psychological impacts of social media addiction?
The role of genetics vs. environment in determining intelligence
How does mindfulness meditation influence stress levels?
The effects of early childhood trauma on adult mental health
What are the cognitive benefits of bilingualism?
The impact of exercise on mental health and mood
How do stereotypes and prejudices develop and affect behavior?
The role of attachment theory in understanding romantic relationships
What are the psychological effects of prolonged isolation?
The influence of parental involvement on academic achievement
How do cognitive biases affect decision-making?
The effects of music therapy on anxiety and depression
What are the psychological mechanisms behind placebo effects?
How does exposure to violent media influence aggression?
The role of self-esteem in coping with life challenges
What are the effects of nutrition on cognitive function?
How does early intervention in autism spectrum disorder affect developmental outcomes?
The impact of stress management techniques on overall well-being

AP Capstone Research Topics

How did the rise of digital nomadism change the concept of work-life balance?
The impact of virtual reality on empathy and understanding of social issues
How do small, community-based conservation efforts contribute to global environmental change?
The role of crowdfunding in transforming startup culture and innovation
What can ancient agricultural practices teach us about modern sustainable farming?
How do storytelling techniques in video games influence player behavior and decision-making?
The effects of cross-cultural exchanges on traditional art forms in the digital age
What are the social and psychological impacts of living in a hyper-connected world?
How do grassroots movements influence national policy changes?
The role of biohacking in personal health and ethical considerations
How do urban green spaces impact community well-being and social interactions?
The influence of speculative fiction on real-world scientific advancements
What are the psychological effects of experiencing extreme weather events on communities?
How do traditional storytelling methods in indigenous cultures address modern social issues?
The role of augmented reality in enhancing educational experiences and learning outcomes
How do cultural festivals contribute to local economic development and global awareness?
The impact of immersive theatre on audience engagement and social change
What can historical patterns of migration reveal about current refugee crises?
How do alternative economic models, like time banking, challenge traditional concepts of value and work?
The effects of digital detox programs on mental health and productivity

AP English Language Research Paper Topics

How does rhetoric influence public opinion in political speeches?
The role of satire in social and political commentary
How do language and style vary between formal and informal writing?
The impact of social media on modern communication practices
How does persuasive writing shape consumer behavior in advertising?
The use of metaphor in shaping cultural narratives
What are the linguistic features of effective storytelling in literature?
How does the choice of diction affect the tone of a piece?
The role of rhetorical devices in Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches
How do different genres of writing influence reader perception?
The impact of globalization on language and communication styles
How does the structure of a persuasive essay affect its effectiveness?
The use of imagery and symbolism in shaping the reader's emotions
How does the language used in news media influence public understanding of events?
The role of ethos, pathos, and logos in crafting compelling arguments
How does narrative voice affect reader engagement in memoirs and autobiographies?
The influence of historical context on the language of classical literature
How do language and rhetoric contribute to the development of national identity?
The effects of censorship on literary expression and freedom
How do authors use rhetorical strategies to address social justice issues?

Characteristics of a Good AP Research Paper

Strong AP research topics stand out due to several key features that ensure their impact. Here's what to keep in mind:

Timeless Relevance: Select a topic that maintains its significance over time. Avoid subjects likely to become outdated quickly. Instead, focus on issues with long-term importance that can be referenced by future researchers.
Supported by Credible Sources: Your research must be backed by reliable sources. For example, research supported by academic databases like JSTOR or publications from trusted institutions such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) adds credibility.
Clear and Insightful Research Questions: Good questions help define the scope of your paper and shape your analysis, ensuring that your research is both relevant and insightful. For example, if your topic involves the impact of digital marketing, questions inspired by case studies from companies like Google or Adobe can provide a structured framework for your analysis.
Specific Focus: Narrow your topic to address specific issues, avoiding overly broad subjects. For instance, if researching the effects of climate change, focus on a particular aspect such as its impact on urban agriculture.
Logical Structure and Clarity: Ensure your paper has a clear introduction, body, and conclusion. Each section should flow logically, with well-organized arguments and evidence. A clear structure helps readers follow your argument and enhances the overall readability of your paper.

By considering these pointers suggested by EssayPro, your paper will make a valuable contribution to your field of study. It'll also be easy for you to draw on the best practices and examples from leading research institutions and industry experts.

Tips for Choosing an AP Research Topic

Here are some useful tips to help you choose standout AP research topic ideas:

Examine Current Trends: Look at recent news, technological advances, or social movements for inspiration. Topics like the effects of remote work on productivity or the rise of sustainable fashion can be both timely and impactful.
Reflect on Your Passions: Whether it's a hobby, a cause, or a field you're curious about, your enthusiasm will make the research process more enjoyable and your writing more compelling.
Seek Out Gaps in Existing Research: Identify areas where there's a lack of information or where current research is outdated. For example, if you notice few studies on the psychological effects of digital detoxes, that might be a unique angle worth exploring. EssayPro can also help you find existing research and identify gaps that need further investigation.
Consult with Experts: Talk to teachers, mentors, or professionals in fields you're interested in. Their insights can help you identify important topics. You might also find useful examples and advice from Essaypro's expert writers.
Consider Practical Applications: Choose a topic with real-world applications or implications. Researching the impact of new educational technologies on classroom dynamics, for example, can provide valuable insights and practical solutions.
Look at Your Local Community: Local issues or events can offer unique and relevant topics. Investigate how local policies affect community health or how a local environmental issue is being addressed. These topics can provide fresh perspectives and direct relevance.
Use Personal Experience: Leverage your own experiences or observations. If you've noticed a trend or issue in your daily life, such as the impact of social media on teen behavior, it can provide a unique and personal angle for your research.

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How to Find a Good Research Topic in AP Research?

How long should my ap research paper be, what are some popular ap research topics.

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Grey, S. (2024, August 7). What Is The AP Capstone Program? Everything You Should Know. Forbes . https://www.forbes.com/advisor/education/online-colleges/what-is-ap-capstone/

Peer Reviewed

GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: Key features, spread, and implications for preempting evidence manipulation

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Academic journals, archives, and repositories are seeing an increasing number of questionable research papers clearly produced using generative AI. They are often created with widely available, general-purpose AI applications, most likely ChatGPT, and mimic scientific writing. Google Scholar easily locates and lists these questionable papers alongside reputable, quality-controlled research. Our analysis of a selection of questionable GPT-fabricated scientific papers found in Google Scholar shows that many are about applied, often controversial topics susceptible to disinformation: the environment, health, and computing. The resulting enhanced potential for malicious manipulation of society’s evidence base, particularly in politically divisive domains, is a growing concern.

Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås, Sweden

Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Sweden

Division of Environmental Communication, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden

Research Questions

Where are questionable publications produced with generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) that can be found via Google Scholar published or deposited?
What are the main characteristics of these publications in relation to predominant subject categories?
How are these publications spread in the research infrastructure for scholarly communication?
How is the role of the scholarly communication infrastructure challenged in maintaining public trust in science and evidence through inappropriate use of generative AI?

research note Summary

A sample of scientific papers with signs of GPT-use found on Google Scholar was retrieved, downloaded, and analyzed using a combination of qualitative coding and descriptive statistics. All papers contained at least one of two common phrases returned by conversational agents that use large language models (LLM) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Google Search was then used to determine the extent to which copies of questionable, GPT-fabricated papers were available in various repositories, archives, citation databases, and social media platforms.
Roughly two-thirds of the retrieved papers were found to have been produced, at least in part, through undisclosed, potentially deceptive use of GPT. The majority (57%) of these questionable papers dealt with policy-relevant subjects (i.e., environment, health, computing), susceptible to influence operations. Most were available in several copies on different domains (e.g., social media, archives, and repositories).
Two main risks arise from the increasingly common use of GPT to (mass-)produce fake, scientific publications. First, the abundance of fabricated “studies” seeping into all areas of the research infrastructure threatens to overwhelm the scholarly communication system and jeopardize the integrity of the scientific record. A second risk lies in the increased possibility that convincingly scientific-looking content was in fact deceitfully created with AI tools and is also optimized to be retrieved by publicly available academic search engines, particularly Google Scholar. However small, this possibility and awareness of it risks undermining the basis for trust in scientific knowledge and poses serious societal risks.

Implications

The use of ChatGPT to generate text for academic papers has raised concerns about research integrity. Discussion of this phenomenon is ongoing in editorials, commentaries, opinion pieces, and on social media (Bom, 2023; Stokel-Walker, 2024; Thorp, 2023). There are now several lists of papers suspected of GPT misuse, and new papers are constantly being added. 1 See for example Academ-AI, https://www.academ-ai.info/ , and Retraction Watch, https://retractionwatch.com/papers-and-peer-reviews-with-evidence-of-chatgpt-writing/ . While many legitimate uses of GPT for research and academic writing exist (Huang & Tan, 2023; Kitamura, 2023; Lund et al., 2023), its undeclared use—beyond proofreading—has potentially far-reaching implications for both science and society, but especially for their relationship. It, therefore, seems important to extend the discussion to one of the most accessible and well-known intermediaries between science, but also certain types of misinformation, and the public, namely Google Scholar, also in response to the legitimate concerns that the discussion of generative AI and misinformation needs to be more nuanced and empirically substantiated (Simon et al., 2023).

Google Scholar, https://scholar.google.com , is an easy-to-use academic search engine. It is available for free, and its index is extensive (Gusenbauer & Haddaway, 2020). It is also often touted as a credible source for academic literature and even recommended in library guides, by media and information literacy initiatives, and fact checkers (Tripodi et al., 2023). However, Google Scholar lacks the transparency and adherence to standards that usually characterize citation databases. Instead, Google Scholar uses automated crawlers, like Google’s web search engine (Martín-Martín et al., 2021), and the inclusion criteria are based on primarily technical standards, allowing any individual author—with or without scientific affiliation—to upload papers to be indexed (Google Scholar Help, n.d.). It has been shown that Google Scholar is susceptible to manipulation through citation exploits (Antkare, 2020) and by providing access to fake scientific papers (Dadkhah et al., 2017). A large part of Google Scholar’s index consists of publications from established scientific journals or other forms of quality-controlled, scholarly literature. However, the index also contains a large amount of gray literature, including student papers, working papers, reports, preprint servers, and academic networking sites, as well as material from so-called “questionable” academic journals, including paper mills. The search interface does not offer the possibility to filter the results meaningfully by material type, publication status, or form of quality control, such as limiting the search to peer-reviewed material.

To understand the occurrence of ChatGPT (co-)authored work in Google Scholar’s index, we scraped it for publications, including one of two common ChatGPT responses (see Appendix A) that we encountered on social media and in media reports (DeGeurin, 2024). The results of our descriptive statistical analyses showed that around 62% did not declare the use of GPTs. Most of these GPT-fabricated papers were found in non-indexed journals and working papers, but some cases included research published in mainstream scientific journals and conference proceedings. 2 Indexed journals mean scholarly journals indexed by abstract and citation databases such as Scopus and Web of Science, where the indexation implies journals with high scientific quality. Non-indexed journals are journals that fall outside of this indexation. More than half (57%) of these GPT-fabricated papers concerned policy-relevant subject areas susceptible to influence operations. To avoid increasing the visibility of these publications, we abstained from referencing them in this research note. However, we have made the data available in the Harvard Dataverse repository.

The publications were related to three issue areas—health (14.5%), environment (19.5%) and computing (23%)—with key terms such “healthcare,” “COVID-19,” or “infection”for health-related papers, and “analysis,” “sustainable,” and “global” for environment-related papers. In several cases, the papers had titles that strung together general keywords and buzzwords, thus alluding to very broad and current research. These terms included “biology,” “telehealth,” “climate policy,” “diversity,” and “disrupting,” to name just a few. While the study’s scope and design did not include a detailed analysis of which parts of the articles included fabricated text, our dataset did contain the surrounding sentences for each occurrence of the suspicious phrases that formed the basis for our search and subsequent selection. Based on that, we can say that the phrases occurred in most sections typically found in scientific publications, including the literature review, methods, conceptual and theoretical frameworks, background, motivation or societal relevance, and even discussion. This was confirmed during the joint coding, where we read and discussed all articles. It became clear that not just the text related to the telltale phrases was created by GPT, but that almost all articles in our sample of questionable articles likely contained traces of GPT-fabricated text everywhere.

Evidence hacking and backfiring effects

Generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) can be used to produce texts that mimic scientific writing. These texts, when made available online—as we demonstrate—leak into the databases of academic search engines and other parts of the research infrastructure for scholarly communication. This development exacerbates problems that were already present with less sophisticated text generators (Antkare, 2020; Cabanac & Labbé, 2021). Yet, the public release of ChatGPT in 2022, together with the way Google Scholar works, has increased the likelihood of lay people (e.g., media, politicians, patients, students) coming across questionable (or even entirely GPT-fabricated) papers and other problematic research findings. Previous research has emphasized that the ability to determine the value and status of scientific publications for lay people is at stake when misleading articles are passed off as reputable (Haider & Åström, 2017) and that systematic literature reviews risk being compromised (Dadkhah et al., 2017). It has also been highlighted that Google Scholar, in particular, can be and has been exploited for manipulating the evidence base for politically charged issues and to fuel conspiracy narratives (Tripodi et al., 2023). Both concerns are likely to be magnified in the future, increasing the risk of what we suggest calling evidence hacking —the strategic and coordinated malicious manipulation of society’s evidence base.

The authority of quality-controlled research as evidence to support legislation, policy, politics, and other forms of decision-making is undermined by the presence of undeclared GPT-fabricated content in publications professing to be scientific. Due to the large number of archives, repositories, mirror sites, and shadow libraries to which they spread, there is a clear risk that GPT-fabricated, questionable papers will reach audiences even after a possible retraction. There are considerable technical difficulties involved in identifying and tracing computer-fabricated papers (Cabanac & Labbé, 2021; Dadkhah et al., 2023; Jones, 2024), not to mention preventing and curbing their spread and uptake.

However, as the rise of the so-called anti-vaxx movement during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing obstruction and denial of climate change show, retracting erroneous publications often fuels conspiracies and increases the following of these movements rather than stopping them. To illustrate this mechanism, climate deniers frequently question established scientific consensus by pointing to other, supposedly scientific, studies that support their claims. Usually, these are poorly executed, not peer-reviewed, based on obsolete data, or even fraudulent (Dunlap & Brulle, 2020). A similar strategy is successful in the alternative epistemic world of the global anti-vaccination movement (Carrion, 2018) and the persistence of flawed and questionable publications in the scientific record already poses significant problems for health research, policy, and lawmakers, and thus for society as a whole (Littell et al., 2024). Considering that a person’s support for “doing your own research” is associated with increased mistrust in scientific institutions (Chinn & Hasell, 2023), it will be of utmost importance to anticipate and consider such backfiring effects already when designing a technical solution, when suggesting industry or legal regulation, and in the planning of educational measures.

Recommendations

Solutions should be based on simultaneous considerations of technical, educational, and regulatory approaches, as well as incentives, including social ones, across the entire research infrastructure. Paying attention to how these approaches and incentives relate to each other can help identify points and mechanisms for disruption. Recognizing fraudulent academic papers must happen alongside understanding how they reach their audiences and what reasons there might be for some of these papers successfully “sticking around.” A possible way to mitigate some of the risks associated with GPT-fabricated scholarly texts finding their way into academic search engine results would be to provide filtering options for facets such as indexed journals, gray literature, peer-review, and similar on the interface of publicly available academic search engines. Furthermore, evaluation tools for indexed journals 3 Such as LiU Journal CheckUp, https://ep.liu.se/JournalCheckup/default.aspx?lang=eng . could be integrated into the graphical user interfaces and the crawlers of these academic search engines. To enable accountability, it is important that the index (database) of such a search engine is populated according to criteria that are transparent, open to scrutiny, and appropriate to the workings of science and other forms of academic research. Moreover, considering that Google Scholar has no real competitor, there is a strong case for establishing a freely accessible, non-specialized academic search engine that is not run for commercial reasons but for reasons of public interest. Such measures, together with educational initiatives aimed particularly at policymakers, science communicators, journalists, and other media workers, will be crucial to reducing the possibilities for and effects of malicious manipulation or evidence hacking. It is important not to present this as a technical problem that exists only because of AI text generators but to relate it to the wider concerns in which it is embedded. These range from a largely dysfunctional scholarly publishing system (Haider & Åström, 2017) and academia’s “publish or perish” paradigm to Google’s near-monopoly and ideological battles over the control of information and ultimately knowledge. Any intervention is likely to have systemic effects; these effects need to be considered and assessed in advance and, ideally, followed up on.

Our study focused on a selection of papers that were easily recognizable as fraudulent. We used this relatively small sample as a magnifying glass to examine, delineate, and understand a problem that goes beyond the scope of the sample itself, which however points towards larger concerns that require further investigation. The work of ongoing whistleblowing initiatives 4 Such as Academ-AI, https://www.academ-ai.info/ , and Retraction Watch, https://retractionwatch.com/papers-and-peer-reviews-with-evidence-of-chatgpt-writing/ . , recent media reports of journal closures (Subbaraman, 2024), or GPT-related changes in word use and writing style (Cabanac et al., 2021; Stokel-Walker, 2024) suggest that we only see the tip of the iceberg. There are already more sophisticated cases (Dadkhah et al., 2023) as well as cases involving fabricated images (Gu et al., 2022). Our analysis shows that questionable and potentially manipulative GPT-fabricated papers permeate the research infrastructure and are likely to become a widespread phenomenon. Our findings underline that the risk of fake scientific papers being used to maliciously manipulate evidence (see Dadkhah et al., 2017) must be taken seriously. Manipulation may involve undeclared automatic summaries of texts, inclusion in literature reviews, explicit scientific claims, or the concealment of errors in studies so that they are difficult to detect in peer review. However, the mere possibility of these things happening is a significant risk in its own right that can be strategically exploited and will have ramifications for trust in and perception of science. Society’s methods of evaluating sources and the foundations of media and information literacy are under threat and public trust in science is at risk of further erosion, with far-reaching consequences for society in dealing with information disorders. To address this multifaceted problem, we first need to understand why it exists and proliferates.

Finding 1: 139 GPT-fabricated, questionable papers were found and listed as regular results on the Google Scholar results page. Non-indexed journals dominate.

Most questionable papers we found were in non-indexed journals or were working papers, but we did also find some in established journals, publications, conferences, and repositories. We found a total of 139 papers with a suspected deceptive use of ChatGPT or similar LLM applications (see Table 1). Out of these, 19 were in indexed journals, 89 were in non-indexed journals, 19 were student papers found in university databases, and 12 were working papers (mostly in preprint databases). Table 1 divides these papers into categories. Health and environment papers made up around 34% (47) of the sample. Of these, 66% were present in non-indexed journals.


Indexed journals*	5	3	4	7	19
Non-indexed journals	18	18	13	40	89
Student papers	4	3	1	11	19
Working papers	5	3	2	2	12
Total	32	27	20	60	139

Finding 2: GPT-fabricated, questionable papers are disseminated online, permeating the research infrastructure for scholarly communication, often in multiple copies. Applied topics with practical implications dominate.

The 20 papers concerning health-related issues are distributed across 20 unique domains, accounting for 46 URLs. The 27 papers dealing with environmental issues can be found across 26 unique domains, accounting for 56 URLs. Most of the identified papers exist in multiple copies and have already spread to several archives, repositories, and social media. It would be difficult, or impossible, to remove them from the scientific record.

As apparent from Table 2, GPT-fabricated, questionable papers are seeping into most parts of the online research infrastructure for scholarly communication. Platforms on which identified papers have appeared include ResearchGate, ORCiD, Journal of Population Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology (JPTCP), Easychair, Frontiers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer (IEEE), and X/Twitter. Thus, even if they are retracted from their original source, it will prove very difficult to track, remove, or even just mark them up on other platforms. Moreover, unless regulated, Google Scholar will enable their continued and most likely unlabeled discoverability.


Environment	researchgate.net (13)	orcid.org (4)	easychair.org (3)	ijope.com* (3)	publikasiindonesia.id (3)
Health	researchgate.net (15)	ieee.org (4)	twitter.com (3)	jptcp.com** (2)	frontiersin.org (2)

A word rain visualization (Centre for Digital Humanities Uppsala, 2023), which combines word prominences through TF-IDF 5 Term frequency–inverse document frequency , a method for measuring the significance of a word in a document compared to its frequency across all documents in a collection. scores with semantic similarity of the full texts of our sample of GPT-generated articles that fall into the “Environment” and “Health” categories, reflects the two categories in question. However, as can be seen in Figure 1, it also reveals overlap and sub-areas. The y-axis shows word prominences through word positions and font sizes, while the x-axis indicates semantic similarity. In addition to a certain amount of overlap, this reveals sub-areas, which are best described as two distinct events within the word rain. The event on the left bundles terms related to the development and management of health and healthcare with “challenges,” “impact,” and “potential of artificial intelligence”emerging as semantically related terms. Terms related to research infrastructures, environmental, epistemic, and technological concepts are arranged further down in the same event (e.g., “system,” “climate,” “understanding,” “knowledge,” “learning,” “education,” “sustainable”). A second distinct event further to the right bundles terms associated with fish farming and aquatic medicinal plants, highlighting the presence of an aquaculture cluster. Here, the prominence of groups of terms such as “used,” “model,” “-based,” and “traditional” suggests the presence of applied research on these topics. The two events making up the word rain visualization, are linked by a less dominant but overlapping cluster of terms related to “energy” and “water.”

The bar chart of the terms in the paper subset (see Figure 2) complements the word rain visualization by depicting the most prominent terms in the full texts along the y-axis. Here, word prominences across health and environment papers are arranged descendingly, where values outside parentheses are TF-IDF values (relative frequencies) and values inside parentheses are raw term frequencies (absolute frequencies).

Finding 3: Google Scholar presents results from quality-controlled and non-controlled citation databases on the same interface, providing unfiltered access to GPT-fabricated questionable papers.

Google Scholar’s central position in the publicly accessible scholarly communication infrastructure, as well as its lack of standards, transparency, and accountability in terms of inclusion criteria, has potentially serious implications for public trust in science. This is likely to exacerbate the already-known potential to exploit Google Scholar for evidence hacking (Tripodi et al., 2023) and will have implications for any attempts to retract or remove fraudulent papers from their original publication venues. Any solution must consider the entirety of the research infrastructure for scholarly communication and the interplay of different actors, interests, and incentives.

We searched and scraped Google Scholar using the Python library Scholarly (Cholewiak et al., 2023) for papers that included specific phrases known to be common responses from ChatGPT and similar applications with the same underlying model (GPT3.5 or GPT4): “as of my last knowledge update” and/or “I don’t have access to real-time data” (see Appendix A). This facilitated the identification of papers that likely used generative AI to produce text, resulting in 227 retrieved papers. The papers’ bibliographic information was automatically added to a spreadsheet and downloaded into Zotero. 6 An open-source reference manager, https://zotero.org .

We employed multiple coding (Barbour, 2001) to classify the papers based on their content. First, we jointly assessed whether the paper was suspected of fraudulent use of ChatGPT (or similar) based on how the text was integrated into the papers and whether the paper was presented as original research output or the AI tool’s role was acknowledged. Second, in analyzing the content of the papers, we continued the multiple coding by classifying the fraudulent papers into four categories identified during an initial round of analysis—health, environment, computing, and others—and then determining which subjects were most affected by this issue (see Table 1). Out of the 227 retrieved papers, 88 papers were written with legitimate and/or declared use of GPTs (i.e., false positives, which were excluded from further analysis), and 139 papers were written with undeclared and/or fraudulent use (i.e., true positives, which were included in further analysis). The multiple coding was conducted jointly by all authors of the present article, who collaboratively coded and cross-checked each other’s interpretation of the data simultaneously in a shared spreadsheet file. This was done to single out coding discrepancies and settle coding disagreements, which in turn ensured methodological thoroughness and analytical consensus (see Barbour, 2001). Redoing the category coding later based on our established coding schedule, we achieved an intercoder reliability (Cohen’s kappa) of 0.806 after eradicating obvious differences.

The ranking algorithm of Google Scholar prioritizes highly cited and older publications (Martín-Martín et al., 2016). Therefore, the position of the articles on the search engine results pages was not particularly informative, considering the relatively small number of results in combination with the recency of the publications. Only the query “as of my last knowledge update” had more than two search engine result pages. On those, questionable articles with undeclared use of GPTs were evenly distributed across all result pages (min: 4, max: 9, mode: 8), with the proportion of undeclared use being slightly higher on average on later search result pages.

To understand how the papers making fraudulent use of generative AI were disseminated online, we programmatically searched for the paper titles (with exact string matching) in Google Search from our local IP address (see Appendix B) using the googlesearch – python library(Vikramaditya, 2020). We manually verified each search result to filter out false positives—results that were not related to the paper—and then compiled the most prominent URLs by field. This enabled the identification of other platforms through which the papers had been spread. We did not, however, investigate whether copies had spread into SciHub or other shadow libraries, or if they were referenced in Wikipedia.

We used descriptive statistics to count the prevalence of the number of GPT-fabricated papers across topics and venues and top domains by subject. The pandas software library for the Python programming language (The pandas development team, 2024) was used for this part of the analysis. Based on the multiple coding, paper occurrences were counted in relation to their categories, divided into indexed journals, non-indexed journals, student papers, and working papers. The schemes, subdomains, and subdirectories of the URL strings were filtered out while top-level domains and second-level domains were kept, which led to normalizing domain names. This, in turn, allowed the counting of domain frequencies in the environment and health categories. To distinguish word prominences and meanings in the environment and health-related GPT-fabricated questionable papers, a semantically-aware word cloud visualization was produced through the use of a word rain (Centre for Digital Humanities Uppsala, 2023) for full-text versions of the papers. Font size and y-axis positions indicate word prominences through TF-IDF scores for the environment and health papers (also visualized in a separate bar chart with raw term frequencies in parentheses), and words are positioned along the x-axis to reflect semantic similarity (Skeppstedt et al., 2024), with an English Word2vec skip gram model space (Fares et al., 2017). An English stop word list was used, along with a manually produced list including terms such as “https,” “volume,” or “years.”

Artificial Intelligence
/ Search engines

Cite this Essay

Haider, J., Söderström, K. R., Ekström, B., & Rödl, M. (2024). GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: Key features, spread, and implications for preempting evidence manipulation. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review . https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-156

/ Appendix B

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This research has been supported by Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, through the research program Mistra Environmental Communication (Haider, Ekström, Rödl) and the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation [2020.0004] (Söderström).

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

The research described in this article was carried out under Swedish legislation. According to the relevant EU and Swedish legislation (2003:460) on the ethical review of research involving humans (“Ethical Review Act”), the research reported on here is not subject to authorization by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (“etikprövningsmyndigheten”) (SRC, 2017).

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author and source are properly credited.

Data Availability

All data needed to replicate this study are available at the Harvard Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WUVD8X

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the article manuscript as well as the editorial group of Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review for their thoughtful feedback and input.

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17 College Research Paper Topics. 18 Health Research Paper Topics. 19 Politics Research Paper Topics. 20 History Research Paper Topics. 21 Music Research Paper Topics. 22 Literature Research Paper Topics. 22.1 After Choosing the Research Topic. 22.2 Closing Thoughts. When students approach the final stage of their academic journey, they ...
Top 100 Research Paper Topics: Start Smart
Top 10 Technology Research Paper Topics: See topics related to the cutting-edge technology or dive into history of electronics, or even early advances in agriculture. Food Preservation: Freeze Drying, Irradiation, and Vacuum Packing. Tissue Culturing.
Top 10 Research Topics from 2021
Type at least 3 characters. Top 10 Research Topics from 2021. Find the answers to your biggest research questions from 2021. With collective views of over 3.7 million, researchers explored topics spanning from nutritional immunology and political misinformation to sustainable agriculture and the human-dog bond.
Research articles
Read the latest Research articles from Nature. The authors use lineage tracing to map the fate of wild-type and Brca1 −/−;Trp53 −/− cells in the adult mouse mammary gland, identifying ...
50+ Research Topics for Psychology Papers
Topics of Psychology Research Related to Human Cognition. Some of the possible topics you might explore in this area include thinking, language, intelligence, and decision-making. Other ideas might include: Dreams. False memories. Attention. Perception.
The New England Journal of Medicine
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is a weekly general medical journal that publishes new medical research and review articles, and editorial opinion on a wide variety of topics of ...
Writing for publication: Structure, form, content, and journal
This article provides an overview of writing for publication in peer-reviewed journals. While the main focus is on writing a research article, it also provides guidance on factors influencing journal selection, including journal scope, intended audience for the findings, open access requirements, and journal citation metrics.
Examples of Research Paper Topics in Different Study Areas
3. Discuss a work of art in relation to a poem or story, a piece of music, a remarkable building or some other product of human creativity. This topic encourages an interdisciplinary approach that can be particularly interesting, but careful thought should be given to choosing the pieces for comparison. 4.
The top 10 journal articles of 2020
Amachine learning algorithm can identify which patients would derive more benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) versus counseling for depression, suggests research in this Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (Vol. 88, No. 1) article. Researchers retrospectively explored data from 1,085 patients in the United Kingdom treated ...
ScienceDirect.com
Elsevier journals offer the latest peer-reviewed research papers on climate change, biodiversity, renewable energy and other topics addressing our planet's climate emergency. Join us in working towards a sustainable future with our editorially independent report on creating a Net Zero future. Get the Net Zero report
Free APA Journal Articles
Recently published articles from subdisciplines of psychology covered by more than 90 APA Journals™ publications. For additional free resources (such as article summaries, podcasts, and more), please visit the Highlights in Psychological Research page. Browse and read free articles from APA Journals across the field of psychology, selected by ...
10000 PDFs
Explore the latest full-text research PDFs, articles, conference papers, preprints and more on RESEARCH TOPICS. Find methods information, sources, references or conduct a literature review on ...
Recently Published
Read the latest articles from The New England Journal of Medicine on various topics, such as thyroiditis, hip pain, low back pain, and more.
Write and structure a journal article well
Abstract. The purpose of your abstract is to express the key points of your research, clearly and concisely. An abstract must always be well considered, as it is the primary element of your work that readers will come across. An abstract should be a short paragraph (around 300 words) that summarizes the findings of your journal article.
The top 10 journal articles
1: Journal Article Reporting Standards for Qualitative Research in Psychology. This American Psychologist open-access article lays out—for the first time—journal article reporting standards for qualitative research in psychology (Levitt, H.M., et al., Vol. 73, No. 1). The voluntary guidelines are designed to help authors communicate their work clearly, accurately and transparently.
Chemistry
Chemistry articles from across Nature Portfolio. Chemistry is a branch of science that involves the study of the composition, structure and properties of matter. Often known as the central science ...
How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal
Communicating research findings is an essential step in the research process. Often, peer-reviewed journals are the forum for such communication, yet many researchers are never taught how to write a publishable scientific paper. In this article, we explain the basic structure of a scientific paper and describe the information that should be included in each section. We also identify common ...
JSTOR Home
Broaden your research with images and primary sources. Harness the power of visual materials—explore more than 3 million images now on JSTOR. Enhance your scholarly research with underground newspapers, magazines, and journals. Take your research further with Artstor's 3+ million images. Explore collections in the arts, sciences, and ...
Research Guides: EXHS 135: Concepts, Ex Sci & Sports: Articles
Start with these when looking for exercise science related article. Academic Search Complete This interdisciplinary database provides full text access to over 8,500 academic journals in the social sciences, humanities, general science, education, and multi-cultural journals.
Full article: Trends in social inclusion and its impact on public
1. Introduction. The rapidly growing field of government studies on public services offers the potential for significant new theories to emerge to advance the understanding of justice and equity (Tokovska et al., Citation 2023).Along with advances in this field, the cutting edge of public service delivery has shifted from customer satisfaction to the application of fairness in processes and ...
The top 10 journal articles
This review article in Technology, Mind, and Behavior (Vol. 2, No. 1) combines theory and prior research to derive four explanations for "Zoom fatigue," the feeling of exhaustion brought on by video calls: excessive close-up eye contact with speakers, constant self-evaluation of one's own image on the screen, remaining in a fixed position ...
A bibliometric review of waste management and ...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19: 14745 ... Hassan MK, et al. (2022) A bibliometric review of finance bibliometric papers. Finance Research Letters 47: 102520. Crossref. Web of Science ... Zhang Y, et al. (2021) Exploring topics in bibliometric research through citation networks and semantic analysis. ...
The past and present of thought experiments' research at Glancy
In the development of physical theories, thought experiments play a crucial role. Research on this topic began in 1976 and has continued to the present. This study aims to provide a more complete picture of the progress of thought experiments over the past two decades. To achieve this, this study employs bibliometric mapping methods. A total of 679 published papers were analyzed, including ...
AP Research Topics: EssayPro's Carefully Curated List
Tips for Choosing an AP Research Topic. Here are some useful tips to help you choose standout AP research topic ideas: Examine Current Trends: Look at recent news, technological advances, or social movements for inspiration. Topics like the effects of remote work on productivity or the rise of sustainable fashion can be both timely and impactful.
A public health approach to suicide prevention
The Series, A public health approach to suicide prevention, published in The Lancet Public Health argues that a change in the narrative is needed to move from presenting suicide as a mental health issue to also acknowledging the impact of social factors, such as poverty, debt, addictions, homelessness, abuse, discrimination and social isolation, on a person's decision to consider suicide.
GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: Key features
Academic journals, archives, and repositories are seeing an increasing number of questionable research papers clearly produced using generative AI. They are often created with widely available, general-purpose AI applications, most likely ChatGPT, and mimic scientific writing. Google Scholar easily locates and lists these questionable papers alongside reputable, quality-controlled research.

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113 Great Research Paper Topics

What Makes a Good Research Paper Topic?

#1: It's Something You're Interested In

#2: There's Enough Information to Write a Paper

#3: It Fits Your Teacher's Guidelines

113 Good Research Paper Topics

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How to Write a Great Research Paper

#1: Figure Out Your Thesis Early

#2: Back Every Statement Up With Research

#3: Do Your Research Before You Begin Writing

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After Choosing the Research Topic

Closing Thoughts